A dedicated manhunt by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the military's Joint Special Operations Command has been methodically finding and killing senior militants in Syria and Iraq, in one of the few clear success stories of the U.S. military campaign in those countries.
The drone strikes ‐ separate from the conventional bombing campaign run by U.S. Central Command ‐ have significantly diminished the threat from the Khorasan Group, an al-Qaida cell in Syria that had planned attacks on American aviation, U.S. officials say. The group's leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, and its top bomb-maker, David Drugeon, were killed this past summer.
Other targeted strikes have taken out senior Islamic State group figures, including its second in command, known as Hajji Mutazz.
In an effort that ramped up over the last year, intelligence analysts and special operators have harnessed an array of satellites, sensors, drones and other technology to track and kill elusive militants across a vast, rugged area of Syria and Iraq, overcoming the lack of a significant U.S. ground presence and the awareness by U.S. targets that they can be found through their use of electronic devicesâŚ