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U.S. Special Operations troops killed a top leader of the Islamic State group during a covert raid in eastern Syria Friday night, according to American officials. The raid appears to be the first publicly revealed offensive U.S. military operation on Syrian soil in the coalition fight against ISIS.

The Army special operations team was attempting to capture Abu Sayyaf, whom the Pentagon said helped direct the group’s illicit oil, gas, and financial operations. The team flew into Syria from Iraq on Blackhawk helicopters and Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, a defense official said. They fought a close-quarters firefight that included hand-to-hand combat. They killed a dozen enemy fighters, some of whom were using women and children as human shields.

via US Special Ops Troops Kill ISIS Leader in Syria Raid – Defense One.

Delta was trying to snatch him, but zapping him is good enough.

This kind of operation is highly dependent on good intelligence, and good operational security. You have to let enough people know what you’re doing to avoid the friction of war, but not so many people that the enemy hears about what is coming.

And of course, timeliness is critical as well. Having developed the intelligence to allow a raid, the authorization to go has to come before the information goes stale.