Niger: a Sahel country bumping along (catch all)

[AdamG]

Poor training, complacency and a culture of excessive risk contributed to the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during an operation in Niger in October, according to a classified Pentagon report.
The report, described by officials familiar with its contents, details a series of missteps and describes a disregard for military procedures and for the chain of command.
Among other things, the report discloses that low-level commanders, determined to make a mark against local jihadis in the West African nation, took liberties to get operations approved through the chain of command.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/classif...=djemalertNEWS

Cluster.

[AdamG]

Caveat: WaPo. If you can't access via the URL, google-search the headline and acquire full access that way.

A months-long investigation of a disastrous U.S. Special Operations mission that killed four Americans in Niger found that “individual, organizational and institutional failures and deficiencies” contributed to an operation that spiraled out of control, singling out two junior officers for improper planning but not placing blame on any single factor.

The Pentagon released an eight-page summary report Thursday, withholding thousands of pages of witness statements, maps and other documents and a longer report of about 180 pages. The U.S. military often releases those materials at the conclusion of an investigation, but said it is still working to declassify additional information.

The Pentagon also released a 10-minute video re-creation of the battle*, but withheld a longer unclassified re-creation shown to family members and members of Congress this month.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.f5b4ea11737e

* Which is here. https://www.militarytimes.com/video/...-niger-ambush/

Rhetorical: 0.36 mark, "the convoy halted". What ever happened to 'get off the X'?

[AdamG]

Niger Ambush Summary
https://www.defense.gov/portals/1/fe...estigation.pdf

[davidbfpo]

An excellent article from 'The Guardian', helped by having access to a Nigerien National Guard soldier who was held by ISIS (his outpost being overrun) and helps to explain the background. Tribes or clans, cattle, guns and more - plus some religion. So a key section:

Sahraoui, the leader and founder, may be a jihadist pledged to Islamic State, but his camel and motorbike-mounted militants are very different to ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Sahraoui is thought to be originally from the disputed territory of Western Sahara and spent time in Algeria before coming to Mali. After years at the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and the al-Qaida-linked group al-Murabitoun, he split off to found ISGS, piggybacking on a conflict on the Niger-Mali border that had been rumbling on for decades and was ripe for exploitation.

The people he chose – nomadic Fulani herders in the regions of Tillabéri and Tahoua – had been feuding with the Daoussahak Tuareg of the Ménaka region in Mali for decades.

“The Tillabéri problem is an ethnic problem,” said a Nigerien intelligence officer who had worked on the region for decades. “The Fulani have a problem with the Tuareg, and jihadists profited from the situation.”

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...reign-soldiers

[davidbfpo]

Worth watching a short, seven minute video casting doubt on the DoD version of events:

In this video, Donald Bolduc, the former commander of special operations in Africa, and Jack Murphy, an eight-year army special forces veteran, speak about the report. Some of their assessments differ from the findings laid out by the Pentagon about what went wrong.

Link:https://www.wsj.com/articles/experts...ush-1528752372

[davidbfpo]

In June 2016 a French parliamentary committee held a hearing with the French SF CO, about their role and capacity - asking him to describe some typical operations that French SF conducted. He answered referring to operations in West Africa:

An operation always starts with an intelligence phase...We seek first to understand the organization of the enemy, so as to optimise our leverage.....Once you have solid information , you have a mission preparation phase, which assumes an even greater degree of certainty about your objectives and context. Finally comes the time of the action, and all means of action can be considered.

The linked report cites a published French parliamentary report, without a link and the quote can be found on pg.28. See:https://remotecontrolproject.org/pub...pecial-forces/