Hillary Clinton plans to defeat Isis by taking out leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Top campaign advisers suggested Ms Clinton would prioritise the decapitation strategy as part of her proposed intelligence surge

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Hillary Clinton plans to capture or kill Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as part of a major intelligence surge if she becomes president.

A Clinton administration would devote “significant resources” to the hunt for al-Bagdhadi in conjunction with a long-proposed intelligence surge to also quell the uptick in domestic “lone wolf” attacks.

In the days leading up to the first presidential debate between Ms Clinton and Donald Trump, her Republican rival, an apparently Isis-inspired bomber injured 29 people in New York and planted a series of explosives in New Jersey.

Mr Trump has criticised both Ms Clinton and Barack Obama for enabling – and even “co-founding” Isis – through failed, “gentle” policies, without having supplied details of his plan to “do something extremely tough” against the Islamist extremist group.

While the Clinton campaign has not offered much in the way of detail, they offered a brief glimpse into their decapitation strategy – hearkening back to Barack Obama's successful campaign to execute Osama Bin Laden while Ms Clinton was Secretary of State.Hillary Clinton hopes to decapitate Isis by taking out leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi

“She really would put a concerted focus on that, really going after [al-Baghdadi] in particular,” Laura Rosenberger, a senior foreign policy adviser for Ms Clinton, told The Guardian.

After 9/11, counterterrorism efforts concentrated on large-scale attacks. Yet, as extremists make use of the Internet and more isolated attacks sprout domestically, a Clinton administration would best benefit from narrowing the scope of any intelligence surge.

“The post-9/11 architecture was designed largely for identifying complex plots. We’re in a different world now, where the lone wolf attackers may not even be directed by or coordinated with a terrorist group, they may simply be inspired by them,” Ms Rosenberger said. “We need to adapt for that reality while still not taking our eye off the ball of identifying potential complex attacks.”

Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with US national security officials as soldiers carry out the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden (White House)

But overall, the intelligence surge would expand sharing efforts between the US and European governments, focusing on financial assets, weapons, and the flow of jihadists. And as Isis and other extremist groups move into cyberspace, a simple bombardment – as Mr Trump proposes – will not be effective.

The surge raises questions about spying, as the Clinton administration would expand domestic surveillance to local law enforcement agencies. Although campaign advisers suggest the “principles” of the intelligence surge would be to execute more targeted spying as opposed to bulk data gathering.

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Clinton’s advisers also described a “balancing act” between increase in security and maintaining civil liberties, and assured “appropriate safeguards” to any surveillance programmes, citing the US Freedom Act of 2015, which limits but doesn’t prohibit domestic spying.

“So those kinds of principles and protections offer something of a guideline for where any new proposals she put forth would be likely to fall,” Ms Rosenberger said.

But some experts believe that Ms Clinton is offering only minimal changes to a counterterrorism apparatus that needs to be completely redone.

“In essence, they want to do more of the same and tweak it around the edges instead of taking a step back and asking: ‘What are you getting for your money and can we be doing ultimately differently and better?’” Pat Eddington, civil liberties and national security analyst at the Cato Institute, told the Guardian.

Malcolm Nance, author of Defeating Isis alluded to a future with a more abstracted version of the islamist extremists of today.

“The most critical thing to remember is in the next year, Isis’ caliphate will most likely collapse,” he said. “They will transition from my physical state into what I call a ghost caliphate.

“The ideology will go underground and be spread almost exclusively through the Internet."