Al-Qa`idah or not Al-Qa`idah they are all the same

Look at this headline and story, and then notice this:  "“One of the goals of organizations like Al Shabab and Al Qaeda is to influence people both here and abroad to get them to join the fight,” Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, said after the hearing. “We are very, very focused in New Jersey and around the country on combating that threat.”"  So for Obama administration (like Bush), to justify the political theater of high profile announcements of uncovering Al-Qa`idah cells, it becomes necessary to blur the distinction between Al-Qa`idah and any other Muslim organization.  I thought that the US was "suspecting" links between Al-Shabab (an organization that is pitted against the US-supported warlords in the Somali civil wars (has the US ever not support warlords in any civil war?) and Al-Qa`idah, and now they have become one organization?