Some mid to high level commanders were killed without Isis releasing any "grand press releases", he added, which could indicate that their deaths were the result of an internal feud.
The Russian military said two models of Sukhoi fighter jets, Su-34s and Su-35s, had carried out the strike, on what it described as "high level commanders of the terrorist group within the so-called military council of the Islamic State," Interfax reported.
Several high level commanders have defected from the group.
Last year there were more than 100 drone strikes, with the vast majority of those attacks killing only low-level militants -- not high level commanders.
Del Ponte recalls how she responded to pressure from the Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica by pledging him "one indictment by the end of the year against a high-level commander".
WASHINGTON — A C.I.A. drone strike on Thursday killed a high-level commander in the Haqqani network, the militant group that has been the largest killer of American troops in Afghanistan, American officials said.
But the impostor had already so convinced officials that he was a high-level commander who spoke for the Taliban movement that Nato flew him to Kabul on a British aircraft.
The multiple missile hits in the same area over several hours, which targeted two vehicles and a compound, suggested that intelligence might have indicated the presence of a high-level commander.
Linking them to mid- or high-level commanders in court is much harder.
Again and again, high-level commanders ordered Lincolns into attacks that officers in the field warned would be suicidal.
This is simply not the case, as the analyses by individuals from high-level commanders to junior officers on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, demonstrate.
