Adam Goldman and Eric Schmitt detail in The New York Times how U.S. intelligence officials have targeted the propaganda arm of the Islamic State, or ISIL, with radio-controlled drone attacks. "One by one, American and allied forces have killed the most important of roughly a dozen members of the cell, which the FBI calls 'the Legion,' as part of a secretive campaign that has largely silenced a powerful voice that led to a surge of counterterrorism activity across the United States in 2015 as young men and women came under the influence of its propaganda," they write. The FBI is also sorting through the social media histories of their drone victims, to find anyone inspired by the group's messages. The story mentions specific arrests and thwarted terrorists attacks stopped by the social media monitoring. On Nov. 27, The New York Times also reported that the Obama administration expanded the legal scope of the war against Al Qaeda, deeming the Shabab, an Islamist militant group in Somalia, as part of the armed conflict that Congress authorized against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, giving President-elect Donald J. Trump more leeway for bombing in the horn of Africa.