{"id":92175,"date":"2016-11-27T21:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T02:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/?p=92175"},"modified":"2016-11-27T21:05:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T02:05:01","slug":"elite-military-unit-gets-power-hunt-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/elite-military-unit-gets-power-hunt-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Elite military unit gets more power to hunt terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s administration is giving the elite Joint Special Operations Command – the organization that helped kill Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid by Navy SEALs – expanded power to track, plan and potentially launch attacks on terrorist cells around the globe, a move driven by concerns of a dispersed terrorist threat as Islamic State<\/a> militants are driven from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n The missions could occur well beyond the battlefields of places such as Iraq, Syria and Libya where the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has carried out clandestine operations in the past. When finalized, the decision will elevate JSOC from a highly valued strike tool used by regional military commands to the lead of a new multi-agency intelligence and action force. To be known as the “Counter-External Operations Task Force,” the group will be designed to take JSOC’s targeting model – honed over the past 15 years of conflict – and export it globally to go after terrorist networks plotting attacks against the West.<\/p>\n The creation of a new JSOC entity this late in President Obama’s tenure is the “codification” of best practices in targeting terrorists outside of conventional conflict zones, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration deliberations. It is unclear, however, whether the administration of President-elect Donald Trump will keep this and other structures set up by Obama. They include guidelines for counterterrorism operations such as approval by several agencies before a drone strike and “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed. This series of presidential orders is known as the “playbook.”<\/p>\n The new JSOC task force could also offer intelligence, strike recommendations and advice to the militaries and security forces of traditional Western allies, or conduct joint operations with them, officials said. In other parts of the world with weak or no governments, JSOC could act unilaterally.<\/p>\n The global focus is reminiscent of when U.S. forces first went after al-Qaeda in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As the approaching U.S. troops forced militants to flee their safe havens in Afghanistan and scatter across the globe, the United States followed in pursuit, using CIA assets to grab suspected al-Qaeda operatives in dozens of countries, sometimes capturing and imprisoning them under murky legal authorities and using interrogation techniques widely seen as torture.<\/p>\n Some in the Pentagon hope to see the new task force working in tandem with the CIA, elevating a sometimes distant relationship to one of constant coordination to track and go after suspected terrorists outside traditional war zones.<\/p>\n In recent years, the agency’s involvement in global paramilitary operations has waned – with fewer strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and its armed drones in Syria transferred to the Pentagon. It is unclear how much the CIA may be willing to cooperate with JSOC and more broadly with the Pentagon after the White House’s decision.<\/p>\n The agency, with its broad contacts overseas, espionage networks and long experience in covert operations, has much greater reach than JSOC.<\/p>\n The CIA declined to comment.<\/p>\n