Al Qaeda moving into sub-Saharan Africa?

Residents of Chad, Mali, and Niger must be celebrating this news - from the Financial Times:

John Negroponte, deputy US secretary of state, highlighted increased al-Qaeda activity in northern parts of Africa as well as the risk of Iraq violence spreading further across the Middle East. . .

"I think there's a concern that al-Qaeda might expand its efforts into the Sahel region [immediately south of the Sahara in Africa]", he said, citing Chad, Mali and Niger. His comments, in an interview with the Financial Times and other European newspapers, follow a warning from countries such as Morocco that a growing number of terrorist training camps across the Sahel region are drawing in north Africans.