U.S. Says Better Intelligence Has Led to More Killings of Top ISIS Commanders

Paul Sonne and Julian E. Barnes

May 3, 2016

U.S. Cites Better Intelligence for Stepped-Up Airstrikes on Islamic State

The U.S. is increasing the tempo of its airstrikes on Islamic State in Syria as American military personnel on the ground help gather better information about targets to hit, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Monday, vowing to step up strikes further as more targets become known.

Mr. Carter, the top U.S. defense official, is set to meet Wednesday in Germany with defense ministers from the most active countries in the U.S.-led coalition combating Islamic State. The meeting comes as the Pentagon faces criticism by defense analysts and members of Congress for the speed of its campaign against the extremist group.

Some lawmakers have said the U.S. is conducting too few strikes. Privately, some U.S. allies have also said they would like to see more strikes, arguing potential Islamic State targets should be developed more quickly.

According to Mr. Carter, an increase in airstrikes already has begun and will continue, in part thanks to a recently announced increase in U.S. troops on the ground.

“The air campaign, you see, is increasing the tempo,” Mr. Carter said. “Why? Because we have the opportunity to increase the tempo, because we have better information that allows us to be more effective from the air.”

The U.S. late last year announced the deployment of about 50 special-operations force members to Syria. Last month, the White House agreed to deploy an additional 250 military personnel, significantly expanding the small mission to identify and enable local forces in their campaign to retake territory from Islamic State in Syria.

Mr. Carter said the work of the U.S. troops inside Syria had borne fruit of late, citing two Syrian locations that U.S. troops helped local forces take back from the extremist group.

“The people we put in there some months ago proved, first of all, extremely valuable to both identifying and then enabling local forces,” Mr. Carter said. “So we want to build on that success.”

Another incentive for the U.S. to deploy the additional 250 troops to Syria, the bulk of them special-operations forces, is that U.S. allies also have sent special-operations troops there to do “exactly the same thing,” Mr. Carter said.

“If we get even better intelligence, we are going to do even more from the air—and I am going to be asking more people to put more airplanes into the air,” Mr. Carter said. “But you can’t drop more bombs than there are targets, so this is a situation where you’re growing.”

Separately, efforts to end the broader war in Syria between the Bashar al-Assad regime and various rebel factions continued. Russian and U.S. officials said Monday they had agreed to coordinate new steps toward a political resolution, as the Syrian army said it would extend a limited cease-fire around the capital Damascus for another 48 hours, through Tuesday. 

It doesn’t include Aleppo, the largest city, where fighting has been heavy.

In Geneva for talks on Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the broader, 2-month-old cessation of hostilities “has fallen apart completely” in some areas.

Mr. Carter will spend much of his time in Germany encouraging U.S. allies to contribute more to the fight against Islamic State. On Monday, he welcomed a decision by Norway to deploy special-operations forces to Jordan to train vetted Syrian Sunni Arab fighters and send a medical team to northern Iraq.

In an interview last week in Brussels, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work urged patience, as the U.S. works to take territory only by backing local forces.

“When you have a strategy that is by, with, and through partners, it is going to go slower than you would otherwise expect,” Mr. Work said. “I think a lot of people, especially Congress, seem to be very impatient with the pace of operations. But this is the natural course of events.”

Mr. Work said the U.S. and NATO were moving to increase the number of reconnaissance aircraft for the coalition campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

He also said the deployment of additional U.S. and allied special-operation forces would increase the amount of intelligence being collected.

“Special-operation forces are especially adept at exploitation operations,” Mr. Work said. “They pick up computers, cellphones. They develop intelligence that allows us to develop more targets. You start to build momentum.”

But Mr. Work said that the coalition couldn’t move faster than its partners on the ground—both Iraqi security forces as well as Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria. “You have to pace our accelerants with the development of capacity of our partners. that is why it goes a little bit slower than people might expect,” he said.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said recently that additional resources that the Pentagon has put to the fight against Islamic State could lead to improved intelligence and therefore more airstrikes.

“The more intelligence we get, that helps us get better targeting,” Ms. James said in an interview in Paris.

Ms. James was in Paris in part to work on the sale of three drones, MQ-9 Reapers, to France. The unarmed aircraft are due to be delivered by October, and could be used in Syria.

French officials have told visiting U.S. officials that they would welcome additional Islamic State targets, according to U.S. and French officials.

Since the November Paris attacks, the U.S. has stepped up intelligence sharing with France, to help develop new target sets.

“They feel intelligence sharing has improved substantially over the past six months to a year,” Ms. James said. “I am aware the French would be welcoming of additional targets. By the way we [and] the entire coalition welcomes additional targeting opportunities.”

Meanwhile, the Navy announced last week that the Harry S. Truman carrier and its accompanying warships would stay on deployment a month longer to fight Islamic State. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said the extension of the carrier and the rest of the Truman Carrier Strike Group by 30 days would help ensure continuity in the fight.