Intelligence gleaned from a special operations raid in May that killed a senior Islamic State leader in Syria has allowed forces to better target the sources of income that help keep it afloat, special envoy John Allen said Wednesday.
“We took from the raid seven terabytes of information — hard drives, thumb drives, DVDs, CDs, paper — and the exploitation of that material is giving us very important insights into the organization of [the Islamic State] and its economic portfolio,” the retired Marine general told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“It was from information yielded in this raid that our coalition aircraft hit 26 targets just last week in Syria and Iraq, including most importantly the Omar oilfield in Deir ez-Zor, which yielded [the Islamic State] up to $5 million per month.”
The treasure trove of information captured in the raid was one of the reasons cited by Defense Secretary Ash Carter when he announced Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. special operations forces will conduct more such ground combat operations when opportunities arise, increasing the risk of casualties, but also potentially increasing pressure on the extremist group.
The target of the overnight raid May 15-16 was Abu Sayyaf, who was in charge of the Islamic State’s financial operations, including its sale of oil from captured refineries and the illicit sale of looted antiquities.
Another raid last week that freed 70 prisoners in northern Iraq resulted in the death of a U.S. special operations soldier, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, which highlighted a loophole in the Obama administration’s “no boots on the ground” policy: Though the administration refuses to send U.S. troops into sustained combat against the Islamic State, it has always kept the door open for short-term operations.
Carter’s announcement made clear that the Pentagon would make greater use of that option, noting Friday that U.S. forces “will be in harm’s way. There’s no question about it and I don’t want anybody to be under any illusions about this.”
The stepped-up pressure on the group is the result of new opportunities that have opened since the beginning of the year-long fight that were not available when the original, more constrained approach was developed, such as the intelligence from the raid in Syria, said Allen, who’s leaving at the end of this month and being replaced by his deputy, Brett McGurk.
