Niger: a Sahel country bumping along (catch all)

[AdamG]

The Pentagon has identified the three Army Green Berets killed in action Wednesday night in Niger.
Staff Sgts. Bryan Black, 35, of Puyallup, Wash.; Jeremiah Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Dustin Wright, 29, of Lyons,#Ga., were killed after their patrol came under attack by Mali-based militants.
The three were assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The U.S. special forces were on a joint patrol with Nigerien soldiers near Mali’s border when they “fell into an ambush set by terrorist elements aboard a dozen vehicles and about twenty motorcycles," Niger's army chief of staff said in a statement.
Four Nigerien soldiers were also killed, eight were wounded and two U.S. soldiers were wounded “after intense fighting, during which elements of the joint force showed exemplary courage,” according to the statement.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/35...illed-in-niger

[davidbfpo]

A CNN report with some more details and more questions:

Officials said the 12 man Green Beret-led team had just completed a meeting with local leaders and were walking back to their unarmored pick-up trucks when the unexpected ambush resulted in a firefight that lasted 30 minutes.
(Later) .....the unit in Niger "had actually done 29 patrols without contact over the previous six months," Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. told reporters.

Link:http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/13/po...nce/index.html

The film clip has a sentence akin to Niger has not given the USA permission to launch air strikes.

[davidbfpo]

Jason Burke, in The Observer, is an accomplished journalist on terrorism; his article helps to provide the context and some pointers to why the four soldiers died in:

That there are conflicting accounts of the clash is not surprising. It occurred in an environment where hard fact is rare, and rumours swirl as fiercely as the dust storms that sweep the scrub and desert.

Was this man the target?

Al-Sahraoui’s background and allegiance is evidence of the extremely fractured nature of the conflict across the swath of northern Africa known as the Sahel. The 40-year-old is thought to have grown up in refugee camps in the south of Algeria, where he was committed to the nationalist cause of the Western Sahara. Little is known about how he became interested in Islamist extremism.....

Did the Niger-SOF team use their initiative?

Any soldier knows that if you give guys on the ground more independence, then they will be that much more aggressive and will take more risks.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rces-islamists

I have changed the thread's title to four SOF dead, after the fourth soldier was found. RIP.

[AdamG]

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, troubled by a lack of information two weeks after an ambush on a special operations patrol in Niger left four U.S. soldiers dead, is demanding a timeline of what is known about the attack, as a team of investigators sent to West Africa begins its work.

The growing list of unanswered questions and inability to construct a precise account of the Oct. 4 incident have exacerbated a public relations nightmare for the White House, which is embroiled in controversy over President Trump’s belated and seemingly clumsy response this week to console grieving military families.

“We need to find out what happened and why,” White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-f...019-story.html

[AdamG]

SWJ Blog Death of U.S. Soldiers in Niger Sparks FBI Probe, Criticism
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=26104

[slapout9]

what's up with the picture of the 4 dead service persons? Two have Green Berets? One has no beret? One has a maroon beret (of the 82nd Airborne)but has an SF flash and SF emblem?

It was originally reported they were all Green Berets. So what's up?

[davidbfpo]

Thanks to a "lurker" for the pointer to an exchange on Twitter between this lady as @texasinafrica (in a moment her bio) and others:

Laura Seay is an assistant professor of government at Colby College, where she teaches African politics. Her research focuses on advocacy groups and U.S. policy in Africa.

Just found her article in 'Slate', which is of value, especially if you look at the issues from a US political scene perspective.

She refers to:

American forces have been in Niger since 2012. Currently, there are about 800. Their primary mission is to advise and assist Niger’s armed forces in their fight against terrorist groups that attack their citizens.

So with the IISS Military Balance to hand, Niger has an army of 5,200 (with mainly French kit) and an air force with 100 (with fifteen aircraft and seven helicopters). So one US soldier for just over every six Niger soldiers. I exclude any wider, regional role and "teeth to tail" ratio.

It concludes with:

Niger is unfamiliar to most Americans, and there’s a need for a long-overdue debate about why American forces are there and in other places around the world in the borderless and seemingly endless “Global War on Terror.” Are the threats to the United States from groups like ISGS really significant enough to spend billions of dollars deploying troops to fight them? Should lives be risked and lost in service of murky goals that often seem tangential to U.S. interests? These are questions worth asking.

[Bill Moore]

what's up with the picture of the 4 dead service persons? Two have Green Berets? One has no beret? One has a maroon beret (of the 82nd Airborne)but has an SF flash and SF emblem?

It was originally reported they were all Green Berets. So what's up?

Slap,

I only know what I read in the media, but it isn't unusual for the media to report non-SF qualified personnel killed in action while serving in a Special Forces Unit as Green Berets. I believe all these soldiers were assigned to a SF unit, and it isn't uncommon for our support soldiers to embed in an ODA go on missions with them. I certainly welcomed their participation when they went out with us, because they bring critical skills and added security.

What is important for Americans to know is they shared the same risks as the Green Berets while serving their nation, and we lost four brothers regardless of the color of their beret.