If President Barack Obama opts to expand airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants from Iraq to neighboring Syria, the effort could be delayed or hindered by intelligence gaps, according to former White House officials and analysts, Daily Star in Lebanon reported on Thursday.

Unlike in Pakistan’s tribal areas, or in Iraq, the United States has been largely absent in Syria for years and has not built up a web of relationships that it could use to monitor the movements of ISIL senior figures.

“We don’t have the same resources in Syria, we don’t have the same intelligence resources that we do in Iraq,” said Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California.

“We don’t have the same government we can work with in Syria,” he told CNN. “So the limits are much more substantial in Syria.”

American bombing raids in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen rely on numerous informants and a fleet of drones that can linger in the air for hours, waiting for senior militants to appear in their sights, ex-officials said.

In comparison, the US faces conditions in Syria that render it practically blind, one former official said.

“It’s a daunting challenge. It’s easier said than done,” said Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

With the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq, and a cautious approach to the war raging in Syria, America lacks a precise picture of its ISIL adversaries there, according to Rubin. “We’ve let our guard down,” he said.

In countries such as Pakistan, when intelligence reports indicate a senior Al-Qaeda figure may be expected in an area, US informants are able to stake out the location until the leader shows up, he said.

But in Syria, “we don’t have that sort of network.”

Members of Syrian militant groups reportedly have been recruited as CIA informants, but it appears to be a relatively small network compared to what the Americans have developed in Pakistan over the past decade.

Washington must also contend with allies such as Turkey and Qatar that have different agendas and may not share the intelligence they have on ISIL, Rubin said.

The two governments have supported hard-line extremists in Syria and are playing “a double game,” Rubin said, though Turkey and Qatar deny forging links with ISIL.

Obama has given the green light to surveillance flights inside Syria, but it remains unclear if American drones and other aircraft face a serious threat from Syria’s air defenses, although Damascus has lost control of eastern parts of the country and analysts say its air defenses would not be operational there.

Syria’s Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and radar, especially batteries around Damascus, were cited last year as cause for concern when Obama weighed possible military action against the Syrian army.

And Syrian leaders may be reluctant to allow American spy planes to venture beyond the eastern border area to get a detailed look at Syrian forces and positions elsewhere.

Apart from Syrian air defenses, US drones such as robotic Reapers and Predators could fly at high altitude and face only a “minimal” danger from ISIL militants’ shoulder-launched weapons, according to Huw Williams, an analyst at defense consultancy IHS Jane’s.

“Essentially, if Syrian air defenses aren’t targeting US UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], then technically they shouldn’t have too many problems in operating against ISIL forces and employing the same surveillance packages and weapons as they do elsewhere,” Williams said.

With the United States possibly poised to bomb a major foe of the Syrian government, it is unlikely Damascus would fire surface-to-air missiles on American warplanes and risk triggering US retaliation, said Gary Samore, a former senior adviser to Obama on arms control.

For Samore, the bigger problem is the need for ground troops in Syria who can seize territory from ISIL militants in the wake of bombing raids.

“The question is whether or not there are ground forces in eastern Syria that could follow up on US airstrikes and actually control territory,” he said. “The answer may very well be ‘no.’”

So the US strike on the ISIL positions in Syria would be an uneasy work, if the intelligence obstacles were not been met ahead of any attack against ISIL.

NTJ/NJF