For those interested in the Hammami story,

I've compiled diverging opinions of those debating the story and have published them in three scenarios.

Here's a quick intro.

Last week, I focused on Hammami’s disaster as it related to larger al-Qaeda. In my opinion, Zawahiri and those in AQ Central pushing for a merger have the blood of AQ members and foreign fighters in Somalia on their hands. Zawahiri either deliberately knocked off some internal AQ adversaries or through poor decision making inadvertently let al-Shabaab eliminate AQ members. One of the reasons I postulated Zawahiri agreed to an AQ-Shabaab merger was to gain access to Western foreign fighters. Hopefully, Zawahiri’s poor judgment will undermine the recruitment of some foreign fighters to AQ – especially al-Shabaab in Somalia – and sideline one of AQ’s main purposes for merging with al-Shabaab.

With this post, I’ll try to sum up the input of those debating Hammami’s plight and how it relates to al-Shabaab’s internal dimensions. I’ve included a a quick chart outlining key players mentioned and three theories as to what Hammami’s disaster may signal inside al-Shabaab.

Here's the link.