WASHINGTON, D.C. — Eight days into President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. officials carried out a drone strike in Somalia that killed an ISIS leader, according to Sebastian Gorka, senior counterterrorism director on the National Security Council. Gorka said he, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and a counterterrorism team member presented intelligence on the target to Trump during an Oval Office meeting.

"Sir, ISIS leader, killed Americans, planning to kill more Americans," Gorka recalled telling the president. Trump responded, "What do you mean, we’ve been watching him? Kill him!" He said the president marked the “go box” on the operation orders with a Sharpie marker.

Less than 30 hours after the meeting, Gorka and a colleague monitored the strike from the White House Situation Room. "Eight forty-five the platform launches what it launches and this individual just disappears from the earth," he said. Trump later posted on social media that he had ordered "precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia." He added, "The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’"

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution, Somalia recorded 8,813 deaths linked to al Shabaab and ISIS over the past year, a 93-percent increase from the previous year. The U.S. conducted 219 declared attacks in Somalia during Trump’s first term—more than a 350 percent increase over the Obama administration’s eight years. Trump oversaw 126 strikes in Somalia last year and has conducted at least 190 in his second term so far.