About two dozen leaders of the Islamic State are reportedly part of a secret hit list that the United States is planning to target through airstrikes, according to a senior U.S. official.
The secret "kill list" identifies ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the No. 1 target, along with other top ISIS operatives in Iraq and Syria, CNN reported.
The list also includes "Jihadi John," who uses the name Jalman al-Britani - the masked jihadi who speaks with a British accent and has been pictured in the gruesome executions of a number of ISIS captives.
"Fundamentally, this is a kill list - something top officials have been aware of for months," CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr reported, citing unnamed government officials.
"One of the key things about this list," Starr reports, is that it is "not just focusing on Jihadi John, though, yep, they want to get him... The list focuses on the top leadership, the ones if they could be killed, might fundamentally degrade ISIS' operations."
Since the U.S. doesn't have any ground troops in Iraq and Syria to capture ISIS militants, the network names have been added and removed as the U.S.-led coalition has conducted airstrikes against the group in both Iraq and Syria, according to government sources.
Over the past few months, a dozen ISIS operatives on the list have been killed, including an ISIS chemical weapons expert, the senior official said, adding that others keep getting added as intelligence is gained about their role in the terrorist organization.
Al-Baghdadi, whose last sighting was months ago, is allegedly staying out of sight because he's aware that U.S. warplanes are specifically hunting for him, a U.S. official told CNN, describing the command-and-control structure of the terror group as murky, The Hill reported.
With the terrorist organization growing a confusing web of ISIS adherents in Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, it is necessary to understand which groups label themselves as ISIS, but might be harboring very different goals.
"We have to take each terrorist or cult organization in every country as a separate entity. We can't look at it as one big group. You may miss the most important targets when you are doing that," said Mark Hertling, CNN military analyst.
By targeting and killing the terror suspects, U.S. is attempting to cripple the terror network's ability to operate, the officials told CNN.
