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How the U.S. Tracked and Killed the Leader of the Taliban

(Wall Street Journal) Adam Entous and Jessica Donati - U.S. spy agencies zeroed in on Mullah Akhtar Mansour while he was visiting his family in Iran. Intercepted communications and other types of intelligence allowed the spy agencies to track their target as he crossed the frontier on Saturday, got into a white Toyota Corolla and made his way by road through Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to U.S. officials. Then, U.S. military operators waited for the right moment to send armed drones across the Afghan border to "fix" on the car and made sure no other vehicles were in the way so they could "finish" the target. The ambush that killed Mullah Mansour represented a message to Pakistan that the U.S. would take action on Pakistani soil if necessary without advance warning. President Barack Obama secretly ordered the strike on Mullah Mansour after first trying to bring him to the negotiating table. U.S. officials said the Pakistanis tried and grew frustrated by Mullah Mansour's refusal to send representatives to meet with the Afghan government in February. An April 19 Taliban attack in Kabul targeted Afghanistan's secret service, killing more than 60 people and underlining for the Americans the extent to which Mullah Mansour had chosen a military course.
2016-05-25 00:00:00
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