This Is The U.S. General Responsible For Military Strategy On Yemen, Islamic State, And Rescuing Hostages

Army Lieutenant General Bennet S. Sacolick. Army.mil

Kevin Maurer, Daily Beast: Meet the General Shaking Up America’s Yemen, ISIS, and Hostage Rescue Plans

Lieutenant General Bennet Sacolick’s little-known office is grabbing the spotlight with its review of U.S. hostage policy and ISIS and Yemen strategy.

Army Lieutenant General Bennet S. Sacolick still remembers the call: The body of an American hostage had been found in Iraq.

It was 2004, and the Iraqi insurgency was building momentum. Four Blackwater USA contractors had recently been killed and their burned bodies hung from a bridge in Fallujah. The Mahdi army, a Shia militia created by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was rising up and Sacolick, then a colonel, was commanding a special operations task force in Iraq.

WNU Editor: He has his work cut out for him.