l-Shabaab... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim
al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...
in a major strategic shift which could change the face of the Somalia war.
The operation will bring together African Union forces operating around Mogadishu, Kenya Defence Forces and Transitional Federal Government forces to fight the thug group throughout Somalia.
An agreement reached by Presidents Kibaki, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni and Somalia's Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed will see Ugandan and Burundi-led AU forces backed by soldiers from Kenya. (Read: Missiles strike rebels as more support Kenya)
Operations against the group will now be coordinated more closely between the two groups as more forces are expected from Djibuti, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
This would more than double the current number of AU troops operating in Somalia from 9,000 to 20,000.
Most of these will be deployed to areas where KDF and Amisom forces have defeated Al-Shabaab.
On the day marking exactly one month since Kenya sent its troops into Somalia to chase the bully boyz accused of abductions in Kenya, Presidents Museveni and Shariff flew to Nairobi for a meeting with President Kibaki.
Al-Shabaab used the occasion to criticise Kenya's military incursion and made an appeal to Kenyans to prevail upon the government to withdraw the forces.
Al-Shabaab front man Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in interviews that the Kenyan military was not advancing any further.
But the front man for the KDF, Maj Emmanuel Chirchir, dismissed the allegations, saying the operation was about to move to phase two which would also include an exit strategy.
He did not expound on the statement but Kenya's military operation swiftly took towns and centres in the south of the country and they are now camped outside Afmadow, a town 105km inside Somalia and near Kismayu.
The Kenya Air Force and Navy are also operating unchallenged within Somali air space and waters.
A joint communique issued after the State House meeting said: "The meeting discussed the status of the joint Kenya-Somalia security operation in pursuit of Al-Shabaab forces of Evil and noted the gains already made by Amisom, TFG and KDF forces and the need to galvanise international support for this purpose."