Pakistan UpdateSuicide bombers receive no death rituals

• Residents carry the body of a woman killed in al-Shabaab's latest attack on Somalia's National Theatre in Mogadishu. [Omar Faruk/Reuters]

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The current leadership of al-Qaeda in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, does not seem to be in a better position today than it was under bin Laden in the last few years of his life: a state of siege and loss of leaders.
However, this does not mean al-Qaeda was entirely defeated. The organisation is apparently still able to call on its allies, who have become its branches around the world. The most recent to answer the call was the Somali movement, Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen.
While al-Shabaab's merger with al-Qaeda was hailed as an "achievement" by the organisation's new leader, al-Zawahiri, the fact remains that the current conduct of this armed Somali movement seems to show it is travelling down the same path as other al-Qaeda affiliates and armed groups before it, whose excesses and extremist interpretation of Islamic teachings alienated people and propelled them to join opposing forces.

Al-Shabaab swimming against the current