Foreign Policy Whiz KidBiden
...Failed seeker of the Democratic presidential nomination on multiple occasions, vice president under Barack Obama, giving it a last try in his dotage for 2020...has suspended dronezaps outside of war zones where U.S. forces are operating, reversing the policy of his predecessor Donald Trump
...the Nailer of NAFTA...
, who had given the military free rein in countries such as Somalia.
Any dronezaps planned against jihadist groups outside of Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq will have to be approved by the White House, Pentagon front man John Kirby said Monday.
Goody. A return to the JAG wars, where every possible military attack or defense must first be called in to the lawyers in Washington, DC for approval. Except when the CIA is involved, one imagines...
He described the measure as "interim guidance" that was issued "to ensure that the president has full visibility on proposed significant actions.""It's not meant to be permanent and it doesn't mean a cessation" of strikes, he told a news conference.
"We are clearly focused on the persistent threat of
The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
said the new guidelines had been secretly passed on to military commanders after Biden came to office on January 20, but were only revealed in recent days.
From his first days in the White House in 2016, Trump had rolled back the controls put in place by his predecessor Barack Obama
I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
on armed operations against jihadist bad boy groups, saying he trusted the commanders on the ground.
Drone strikes quickly multiplied after that, becoming the only form of operations in some countries where only a handful of U.S. special forces were deployed in support of local governments, such as in Somalia, where the U.S. has been battling the al-Shabaab
...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
Islamist group, or in Libya, where they have targeted Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS).
Even though the military says its strikes are "surgical," NGOs have said the attacks often cause civilian casualties, undermining their efficacy in combating extremism.
In a first public report on the US military operation in Somalia published in February, the Pentagon's acting inspector general, Glenn Fine, recalled that part of Africom's stated mission is to ensure that by 2021, Shabaab, the Islamic State in Somalia and other terrorist groups have been sufficiently "degraded such that they cannot cause significant harm to US interests."
But, Fine wrote, "despite continued US
...
KABOOM!...
s in Somalia and U.S. assistance to African partner forces, al-Shabaab appears to be a growing threat that aspires to strike the U.S. homeland."
At least 10 people were killed Friday when a boom-mobile blew up outside a popular restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu, an attack claimed by Shabaab.