19 January 2016, NYT: In Libya, U.S. Courts Unreliable Allies to Counter ISIS
6 January 2016, NYT: U.S. Soldier Killed While Fighting Taliban in Afghanistan
19 December 2015, NYT: ISIS Building 'Little Nests' in Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Warns
19 November 2015, NYT: In Rise of ISIS, No Single Missed Key but Many Strands of Blame
12 July 2015, NYT: U.S. Strike Is Said to Kill Senior ISIS Militant in Afghanistan
24 September 2014, NYT: U.S. Invokes Iraq's Defense in Legal Justification of Syria Strikes
28 May 2014, NYT: U.S. Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016
JAN. 20, 2016
Obama Relaxes Rules for Striking ISIS in Afghanistan
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has made it easier for the military to get approval for strikes in Afghanistan targeting militias that have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, according to several government officials.
The change reflects growing concerns within the government about the militant group's emerging role in Afghanistan. Its militias are largely concentrated in several districts in Nangarhar Province, which includes Jalalabad, where the Islamic State took responsibility for a suicide bombing this month that killed at least 13 people. [1]
The directive, which Mr. Obama sent to the Pentagon about two weeks ago, is another marker of how the American military has continued its fight in Afghanistan despite the official end [2] to its combat mission in late 2014.
Under the change, American officials now need to show only that a proposed target is related to the Islamic State's affiliated militias in Afghanistan. Previously, such a target could be approved only if it had significant ties to Al Qaeda's remnants in the region, the officials said.
The military has also been able to target Islamic State militias in self-defense, but the new rules lower the standard for offensive operations against the group.
A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the change has not been announced, confirmed that the Islamic State has now been designated a "hostile force." But the official said the immediate impact is likely to be "minimal" because the group is still only an emerging player [3] in the region, where it is battling the Taliban for control of funding sources, like smuggling routes.
Afghan government security forces are fighting both the Islamic State militias and the Taliban "because innocent civilians are getting caught in the crossfire," the official said. "But this is certainly not the equivalent of the Taliban, even if they can be targeted because they are a 'designated hostile force.'"
Even under the previous standards, the United States has occasionally bombed the Islamic State-affiliated militias [4] and their leaders in Afghanistan.
The change in the rules was first reported [5] on Tuesday night by The Wall Street Journal, which portrayed it as providing new legal authority to the military.
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the directive is classified, said the government considers the underlying legal authority to be unchanged. The official said the administration had overlaid policy standards for approving strikes on top of that legal authority because the United States wants to carry out offensive attacks only against significant terrorists, not bomb groups "willy nilly."
The change does not affect targeting procedures in other places like Libya where the Islamic State has a growing presence, [6] the official said.
The Islamic State evolved out of the Qaeda affiliate that had battled American troops during the Iraq war and was eventually pushed into rebel-held regions of Syria. In 2013, after a dispute over tactics with Osama bin Laden's successor as the leader of the original Al Qaeda, based in Pakistan, the Islamic State split from Al Qaeda and rebranded itself. [7]
Declaring itself a caliphate, or global Islamist nation, it swept back across Sunni territory of Iraq. In August 2013, when Mr. Obama ordered the military to begin bombing its forces, the administration declared [8] that it had legal authority to do so under Congress's 2001 authorization to use force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and those who aided them -- meaning Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Stretching the existing legal authorization to cover the Islamic State was initially controversial since it had not only split from Al Qaeda but was also battling it. Congress has essentially acquiesced to that interpretation, however, by continuing to fund military operations against the Islamic State without enacting any separate authorization to use force against it.
The 2001 use-of-force authorization is also the basis of the United States' continuing military operations in Afghanistan. Although the Obama administration says the American "combat mission" ended, it has kept troops there to train Afghan forces that are trying to fend off a Taliban resurgence, and to carry out strikes aimed at transnational terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Some American combat deaths [9] have continued.
Separately, the State Department last week designated the Islamic State's affiliate [10] in Afghanistan a foreign terrorist group, subjecting it to sanctions. The senior administration official said the timing was a coincidence.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/world/asia/suicide-attack-kills-at-least-13-in-afghanistan.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/afghanistan-ash-carter.html
[5] http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-clears-path-to-target-islamic-state-in-afghanistan-1453251754