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White House Split on Terror-Fight Future

Whether to use force against militants in Yemen and Somalia.

The White House legal team is divided about the future of the war on terror, administration and congressional officials told The New York Times Thursday. Members of the administration are torn between whether to allocate more funds to fight Islamist militants in Yemen and Somalia, which could keep the war on terror going indefinitely. The use of lethal force in the region has divided the State Department and the Pentagon for months, and current administration policy is to focus only on “high-value individuals” in the region. But some members of the administration feel that a ramped-up effort to root out terrorists, such as the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Somalia-based al Shabab as their Pakistan and Afghanistan-based allies, has floundered. One counterterrorism expert said the war on terror is an “untangled mess” because its boundaries are so undefined.