It is now trying to correct that lapse by escalating operations to take out supply and communications lines.
Still, the Sinaian insurgency has endured for over seven years, even after escalating operations by the military in September 2013.
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has picked Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. as director of national intelligence, tapping a retired officer with decades of experience to improve coordination of the nation's sprawling spy apparatus amid increasing threats at home and escalating operations abroad.
Over the past year, the American Embassy in Nairobi, according to one American official, has become a hive of military and intelligence operatives who are "chomping at the bit" to escalate operations in Somalia.
Although he pledged to escalate operations against al-Qaeda if elected, Obama was perceived by many voters as the anti-war candidate, an image he buttressed with a sharp critique of President George W. Bush's national security regimen.
The American strike is the latest evidence that the Obama administration has decided to escalate operations against the Shabab in the aftermath of the bloody siege at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, last month in which more than 60 men, women and children were killed.
In the future, he said, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region will not be the sole, or even primary, source of bombing suspects". U.S. officials said the administration's plans to escalate operations in Yemen reflect two aims: improving U.S. intelligence in Yemen and adding new options for carrying out strikes when a target is found.
As the strikes continued, security forces stepped up activities in Turkey's southeast, escalating military operations, arresting hundreds in Kurdish areas — including a number of politicians and activists — and eventually imposing curfews.
A Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama sounding the anti-war alarm while escalating the operation sends a very mixed, confusing message to those who voted for him and expected a troop draw-down rather than a build-up.
France, like Russia, has vowed to escalate its operations in Syria as a result.
"I think the Iraqi government will not calm down; they will escalate their operations," said Hussain Mohamed Hassan, 24, an engineering student.
