The Pentagon on Thursday confirmed it killed a senior al Qaeda leader in Syria, saying the strike is a “significant disruption” to the group. Abu al-Farai al-Masri, an Egyptian national also known as Ahmad Salamah Mabruk, was killed in an Oct. 3 strike near Idlib, Syria. The strike will serve as “a blow to their ability to conduct external attacks,” Cook said. Al-Masri is a long-standing al Qaeda member who previously had ties to Osama bin Laden, the Pentagon said in a statement.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
