President Obama is giving the next commander in chief a welcoming gift: a new anti-terror task force that can sidestep bureaucratic hurdles to attack terror cells anywhere in the world.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump will walk into the White House in January with a more powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) than perhaps he anticipated on the campaign trail. Senior administration officials and military sources have confirmed the existence of the Counter-External Operations Task Force, or Ex-Ops, which will work outside conventional conflict zones.
“Layers have been stripped away for the purposes of stopping external networks,” a defense official told The Washington Post Friday. “There has never been an ex-ops command team that works trans-regionally to stop attacks.”
Sources told the newspaper that Ex-Ops’ authority may rankle regional commanders and individuals within the CIA who will not be able to stop it from acting unilaterally. The upside is that assets can be deployed anywhere in the world with increased speed.
One defense official said Special Operations Command (SOCOM) chief, Army Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, will be able to request “whatever he wants and … unless there’s some other higher competing priority, the combatant commanders have to cough it up.”
The CIA declined to comment for The Post’s story.
“These forces on the ground, operating in close concert with our partners, have gathered critical intelligence off the battlefield, and have shared that information with our coalition partners and allies,” a senior administration official said in a statement to the newspaper. “This information is helping us ramp up actions against [Islamic State] leaders and operatives planning attacks, track foreign fighters returning to their home countries and improve law enforcement actions aimed at interdicting potential plotters.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.