Media reports from Somalia on Feb. 1-2 have shed light on the changing battleground shared by the militant groups al Shabaab , Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaah and two former factions of Hizbul Islam in southern Somalia. On Feb. 1, the leader of a former Hizbul Islam faction announced that his group had merged with al Shabaab. This was followed the next day by a statement from his former deputy, who declared that his militia would continue to oppose the jihadist group. Also on Feb. 2, al Shabaab was reported to have fought a battle along the Ethiopian border with another Somali militia backed by Ethiopia. While al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam failed in their May 2009 attempt to topple the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu, al Shabaab remains a potent force in much of the rest of the country, particularly in southern Somalia.