U.S. launches secret drone campaign to hunt ISIS leaders in Syria

WASHINGTON - The CIA and U.S. special operations forces have launched a secret campaign to hunt terrorism suspects in Syria as part of a targeted killing program that is run separately from the broader U.S. military offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

The CIA and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command are both flying armed drones over Syria in a collaboration responsible for several recent strikes against senior Islamic State operatives, the officials said. Among those killed was a British extremist believed to be an architect of the terror group's effort to use social media to incite attacks in the United States, the officials said.

The clandestine program represents a significant escalation of the CIA's involvement in the war in Syria, enlisting the agency's powerful Counterterrorism Center against an extremist group that many officials believe has eclipsed al-Qaeda as a threat.

But while the Counterterrorism Center has been given an expanded role in identifying and locating senior Islamic State figures, U.S. officials said that the strikes themselves were being carried out exclusively by the JSOC. The officials said the program was aimed at terrorism suspects deemed "high value targets."

"These people are being identified and targeted through a separate effort," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the operation, referring to the British extremist, Junaid Hussain, and others killed in recent weeks. Spokesmen for the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees the JSOC, declined comment. Other officials would discuss the program only on condition of anonymity.

The decision to enlist the CIA and JSOC reflects rising anxiety among U.S. counterterrorism officials about the danger posed by the Islamic State, as well as frustration with the failure so far of conventional strikes to degrade the group's strength.

Against that backdrop, the Obama administration has turned again to two of its preferred weapons against terror groups: the Counterterrorism Center, which pioneered the use of armed drones and led the search for Osama bin Laden, and the JSOC, which includes the elite commando unit that carried out the raid that killed the al-Qaeda chief.

Their new adversary, however, poses different challenges. Unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State has extensive territory; a seemingly endless stream of recruits; and a deep roster of senior operatives, many of whom served in the military of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The officials said that the program accounted for only a handful of strikes so far, a tiny fraction of the more than 2,450 conducted in Iraq and Syria over the last year. That broader U.S.-led assault has relied on conventional bombs to dislodge the Islamic State from territory it has seized.

The CIA and JSOC program is more narrow in scope, officials said, aimed primarily at leadership figures in the Islamic State as well as operatives suspected of being involved in efforts to build a terror network beyond the borders of its declared caliphate. Al-Qaeda extremists are also approved targets.

Hussain, the 21-year-old British extremist killed last month, was moved toward the top of the target list after being linked to one of two gunmen killed in Garland, Texas, this year after opening fire at a cartoon contest that invited participants to draw pictures of the prophet Muhammad.

Hussain is not known to have been directly involved in the Islamic State's gruesome beheadings of Western hostages or other violence. The decision to kill him makes clear that even extremists only involved in the Islamic State's media efforts are regarded as legitimate U.S. military targets.

In the past, the Obama administration has stressed that it was not targeting terrorist suspects only involved in propaganda. When Anwar al-Awlaki, an American cleric, was killed in Yemen in 2011, officials emphasized that he had become directly involved in terrorist operations.

As part of the Syria buildup, the CIA and JSOC have pulled drone aircraft and personnel from other regions including Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the reduced pace of the agency's drone campaign against al-Qaeda have freed up resources. The CIA is flying drones only over Syria, not in Iraq, where the Islamic State also has a significant presence.

All of the strikes in Syria are being carried out under the military's post-9/11 authority to pursue al-Qaeda, officials said, rather than a presidential directive or "finding" issued to the CIA. The restriction means that armed CIA drones can only be fired if they are operating under JSOC authority.

Officials said that the collaboration between the CIA and JSOC has been streamlined in ways that allow them to work side-by-side on targeting decisions and all but eliminate delays in executing strikes.

The two continue to have separate drone operations centers, at Langley, Va., and Fort Bragg, N.C. But each has sent representatives to the other's facility, officials said, and both can watch each other's video feeds.

U.S. officials said that the expanded CIA and JSOC efforts in Syria were part of a broader mobilization involving every major U.S. spy service.

While Syria remains a "denied" area for the CIA, meaning it has no established presence inside the country, both the CIA and the JSOC have access to multiple airstrips in the Mideast that could serve as bases for armed drones.