The Kenyan government's decision to invade Somalia was preceded by an ambiguous encounter that received comparatively little coverage. In mid-October, a supposed member of Al-Qaeda, curiously claiming to be from the USA, was seen to be handing out food, clothing and copies of the Koran to famine refugees in the Ala-Yasir camp south-west of Mogadishu.
Such an obvious 'diplomatic' gesture was certainly a rare one. Given that Al-Qaeda also operates on a somewhat fractured basis, one might also speculate as to whether the figure (who claimed to be in Somalia on behalf of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri) might have merely been inspired, rather than directed, by the organisations leadership. Links between individual fighters can't strictly be said to always point to a major sense of organisational unity between the two at the highest levels.
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