United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

military terminology Military terminology refers to the terms and language of military organizations and personnel as belonging to a discrete category. As distinguishable by their usage in military doctrine, they serve to depoliticise, dehumanise, or otherwise a ...

, a high-value target (HVT) is the term given to a person or resource that an enemy commander requires to complete a mission. The term has been widely used in the

news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public. These include news agencies, print media (newspapers, news magazines), broadcast news (radio and television), an ...

for Osama Bin Laden and high-ranking officers of

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

. Former Iraqi President

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

was known as High Value Target Number One by the United States military before his capture. A high-payoff target, also known as an HPT, is a high-value target whose loss to the enemy will significantly contribute to the success of a friendly course of action. Soldiers are often asked to do all that is possible to capture an HVT alive but, if that is impossible, they are given clearance to fire. Various tasked Joint Special Operations Task Forces (

Task Force 145 Joint Special Operations Command Task Force in the Iraq War was a joint American and British special operations unit, of which little is publicly known. It is described as a "hunter-killer team" with its core made up of the United States Army' ...

Task Force 121 Task Force 121 was a United States Department of Defense special operations task force. TF121 was a multi-service force from Joint Special Operations Command, made up of operators from the U.S. Army's Delta Force, 75th Ranger Regiment, and ...

Task Force 11 Task Force 11 (TF 11 or alternately Commander Task Force 11, CTF 11) is a designation that has been used by the United States armed forces for two separate units. World War II During World War II, Task Force 11 was a United States Navy aircraf ...

) have been established for the main purposes of capturing or killing these high-value targets. Forces assigned to these include units mainly from the Joint Special Operations Command and SOCOM such as the US Navy SEALs, US Army

Delta Force The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...

, US Navy

SEAL Team Six The Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), abbreviated as DEVGRU ("Development Group") and commonly known as SEAL Team Six, is the United States Navy component of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The unit is often referre ...

, US Army 75th Ranger Regiment and elements of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-ter ...

(SAS). The term has also become associated with secret US

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

programs to capture and subsequently interrogate terrorist leaders.Seymour M. Hersh, "The Gray Zone:How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib", ''New Yorker'', May 24, 2004 accessed a

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USA kill or capture strategy in Iraq The U.S. "kill or capture" strategy in Iraq is a policy adopted in 2007 by the United States in Iraq to confront suspected Iranian operatives in Iraq.United States Department of Defense definition
High-Value Target (HVT) — A target the enemy commander requires for the successful completion of the mission. The loss of HVTs would be expected to seriously degrade important enemy functions throughout the friendly commander's area of interest. See also high-payoff target; target. (JP 3-09)

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

September 10, 2006 Targeting (warfare) Intelligence operations by type Military terminology Operations involving special forces