"Escalating American military engagement in Somalia" Topic

"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.

The executive branch's stretching of the 2001 war authorization against the original Al Qaeda to cover other Islamist groups in countries far from Afghanistan — even ones, like the Shabab, that did not exist at the time — has prompted recurring objections from some legal and foreign policy experts…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well the local forces are still only marginally effective. Even after Western training, etc., … The bottom line, IMO. Is AQ, no matter what version, etc., like Daesh needs to be removed from the planet. Like a pestilence they all are.

So with CAS, US SF support, etc., as we see in Iraq, etc., may be the best way to do it. Coupled with other non-military means. At least for now …

I have no objections to fighting them around the globe, since some are taking the fight to us here in the USA, even today.

There's no real distinction between militant Islamic terrorists to me. Just a name really, like the AFC or NFC in football, or the American and National Leagues in baseball.

They're still playing the same game, by the same rules, so there's little difference between them.