CIA, U.S. Special Forces launch secret drone war against IS in Syria

PanARMENIAN.Net - The CIA and U.S. Special Forces have launched a secret drone programme in Syria, designed to hunt down and kill high-value members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, The Telegraph reports.

The collaboration, in which both organisations fly armed drones over the country, has resulted in strikes against “several” senior Isil leaders, including a British jihadist, American officials have told the Washington Post.

It indicates an escalation in American attempts to achieve President Barack Obama’s goal to “degrade” and “destroy” the jihadist movement, as it continues to control large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The programme is independent of the efforts by the U.S.-led international coalition, who have been targeting the jihadist positions with air strikes in both countries. Instead, this covert programme focuses on a “hit list” of people believed to be top Isil operatives.

In recent weeks armed drones killed Junaid Hussain a 21-year-old British jihadist who specialised in online propaganda for Isil.

U.S. officials said he was moved towards the top of the target list after his name was linked to one of the two gunmen who opened fire at a cartoon contest in Garland in Texas earlier this year.

The officials said the British government was consulted on the decision to target the jihadist.

The development is a response to the growing concern in Washington over the jihadist movement.

With Isil continuing to expand in Syria, almost one year after the start of U.S.-led coalition air strikes against, many now consider the group a bigger threat than al-Qaeda.

In response, President Obama has mobilised the two bodies who were most instrumental in the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command includes the elite commando unit that carried out the lethal raid and the CIA’s powerful Counterterrorism Centre (CTC) that pioneered the use of armed drones.

The programme is a move away from the president’s stated ambition to end the CIA’s involvement in drone strikes and return the agency to its traditional spy role.

Whilst the CTC has been given an expanded role in tracking Isil figures, it does not have the power to carry out the killing, U.S. officials said. Instead the spy agency passes its video-feed and other information to JSOC who carries out the strike, U.S. officials have said.

In a continuing controversy, the Obama administration has relied heavily on drones for his military strategy for dealing with Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan among others.

A report by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism recently found that the increased demand for drone use has overstretched the U.S. military, resulting in the hiring of hundreds of, less accountable, private security contractors to monitor and sift through the thousands of hours of video feed.