Obama Expands War With Al Qaeda to Include Shabab in Somalia
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTINOV. 27, 2016
Bystanders surveyed damage from a car bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday. The blast killed at least 11 people and wounded 16 others. Credit Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The escalating American military engagement in Somalia has led the Obama administration to expand the legal scope of the war against Al Qaeda, a move that will strengthen President-elect Donald J. Trump’s authority to combat thousands of Islamist fighters in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.
The administration has decided to deem the Shabab, the Islamist militant group in Somalia, to be part of the armed conflict that Congress authorized against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to senior American officials. The move is intended to shore up the legal basis for an intensifying campaign of airstrikes and other counterterrorism operations, carried out largely in support of African Union and Somali government forces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/us/politics/obama-expands-war-with-al-qaeda-to-include-shabab-in-somalia.html?_r=0
