The Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda, in a recording posted on the Internet on Monday, called on Somali insurgents to help gain control over a narrow strait at the mouth of the Red Sea to block US shipments to Israel. The wing's deputy leader, Saeed al-Shehri, urged Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist insurgents to help return the Bab al Mandab strait, which separates Yemen from the Horn of Africa, "to the lands of Islam".
"At such a time the Bab (al Mandab) will be closed and that will tighten the noose on the Jews (Israel), because through it America supports them by the Red Sea," Shehri said in the audio recording posted on a website often used by Islamist groups.
"(Due to the) maritime importance of Bab al Mandab, this would be a great victory," said Shehri, whose group claimed responsibility for a failed bombing of a US plane on December 25. The area across the strait from Yemen is far from al Shabaab's territory which extends from the southern Somali port of Kismayu to the central town of Baidoa and parts of the capital Mogadishu.
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