KEY DATA SEIZED IN U.S. RAID ON ISIL
American intelligence agencies have extracted valuable information about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s leadership structure, financial operations and security measures by analyzing materials seized during a Delta Force commando raid last month that killed a leader of the terrorist group in eastern Syria, U.S. officials say.
The information harvested from the laptops, cellphones and other materials seized in the May 16 operation has already helped the United States identify, locate and carry out an airstrike against another ISIL leader in eastern Syria, May 31. U.S. officials said they were confident Abu Hamid had been killed, although ISIL has not confirmed his death.
New insights yielded by the seized trove — four to seven terabytes of data, said one official — include how the organization’s shadowy leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, operates and tries to avoid being tracked by coalition forces.
He meets periodically with regional emirs at his headquarters in Raqqa, eastern Syria. Specially trusted drivers pick up each of the emirs and demand they hand over their cellphones and any other electronic devices to avoid inadvertently disclosing their location through tracking by U.S. intelligence.
Wives of the top ISIL leaders, including Baghdadi’s, play a more important role than previously known, passing information to one another, and then to their spouses, in an effort to avoid electronic intercepts.
“I’ll just say from that raid we’re learning quite a bit that we did not know before,” a senior State Department official said last week. “Every
I’ll just say from that raid we’re learning quite a bit
single day the picture becomes clearer of what this organization is, how sophisticated it is, how global it is and how networked it is.”
But countering these successes are trends that emphasize the daunting challenge still facing the allied effort to defeat the organization. The thousands of jihadists fighters on the ground in Syria and Iraq are seizing new territory faster than the international coalition arrayed against them can push them back.
U.S. counterterrorism officials acknowledge questions remain about how effectively even this trove of materials can be exploited, given the nature of ISIL’S secrecy and ability to adapt.
The raid on the multi-storey residence of Abu Sayyaf, described by American officials as the group’s top financial officer, illustrates that American intelligence on ISIL leaders is improving. At least one informant deep inside the group played a crucial role in helping track Abu Sayyaf, said a senior military official who was briefed on plans for the raid.
The militant leader was said to be involved in ISIL’s kidnap-for-ransom activities and helped direct its oil, gas and financial operations that raised the funds necessary for the organization to operate.