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Thread: Command failures led to Niger Ambush

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    Command failures led to Niger Ambush

    Command failures led to Niger Ambush

    It seems if the mission was fubared from the get go. They diverted the mission as it was ongoing to go after a high value target, leaving little if any time for planning and rehearsals.

    Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Saturday that the Pentagon investigation of the Niger ambush in which four U.S. troops were killed is close to being wrapped up, but that was before The New York Times published a detailed and damning report based partly on a video of the firefight.

    On his plane back to the U.S. following a week-long trip to Europe, Mattis told reporters traveling with him that Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AfriCom commander, has an unspecified timeline for completing his review of the draft of the Article 15-6 fact-finding investigation.


    However, it is unclear whether Waldhauser's timeline could be affected by the Times' report Sunday, which contradicted previous Pentagon and AfriCom accounts of an Oct. 4 joint patrol with Nigerien troops that resulted in the ambush outside the village of Tongo Tongo, in northwestern Niger.


    The Times report said that AfriCom poorly planned the joint patrol and then changed the mission three times while it was underway, leading to the deaths of the four Americans, four Nigerien troops and an interpreter.
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    Common Sense's Avatar Senior Member
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    Those deaths were very unfortunate and clearly could have been prevented.

    That being said, I think it's quite easy to lay blame with 20/20 hindsight.

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    Killin' jihadis in Niger...

    U.S. Kept Silent About Its Role in Another Firefight in Niger
    MARCH 14, 2018 | WASHINGTON — Green Berets working with government forces in Niger killed 11 Islamic State militants in a firefight in December, the American military acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday. The battle occurred two months after four United States soldiers died in an ambush in another part of Niger — and after senior commanders had imposed stricter limits on military missions in the West African country.
    No American or Nigerien forces were harmed in the December gun battle. But the combat — along with at least 10 other previously unreported attacks on American troops in West Africa between 2015 and 2017 — indicates that the deadly Oct. 4 ambush was not an isolated episode in a nation where the United States is building a major drone base. After the ambush, senior officers at United States Africa Command, which oversees American military operations on the continent, imposed additional measures to enhance the safety of troops on missions that were designed to train and advise local forces in Niger. But the missions did not end. On the morning of Dec. 6, a combined force of Nigerien and American troops “came under fire from a formation of violent extremists,” Samantha Reho, a spokeswoman for Africa Command, said in a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday.

    She said the gun battle killed 11 militants — including two wearing suicide vests — who were believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State in West Africa. No American or Nigerien forces were killed or wounded, she said. It was the first time the American military has acknowledged the December firefight, and Ms. Reho gave no explanation for the Pentagon’s failure to disclose the episode at the time. The head of Africa Command, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, did not mention the December battle in testimony to Congress this month and only broadly outlined the threats in the region. A senior House Republican aide said on Wednesday that lawmakers had been notified about the Dec. 6 attack soon after it happened.


    Nigerien Army soldiers conducting an exercise last month. After four American soldiers were killed in an October ambush, the United States imposed additional safety measures to protect troops on missions helping local forces in Niger. But the missions did not end.

    Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is reviewing the results of a lengthy internal investigation into the October ambush, near the border with Mali, which set off a widespread debate about why American troops are fighting a shadowy war in Niger. A military official said on Wednesday that Mr. Mattis was wrestling with the investigation’s apparent attempts to blame low-level commanders for the deaths of the four soldiers and not implicate senior officers. The families of the soldiers — Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson and Sgt. La David Johnson — have not been told of the investigation’s conclusions, said the military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released. The Pentagon appears ready to scale back military operations in West Africa even further. A draft of the investigation, parts of which were described to The Times in February, called for the military to reduce the number of ground missions, and to strip commanders in the field of some authority to send troops on potentially high-risk patrols.

    Between 2015 and 2017, there were about 10 instances of American troops and local training partners being attacked in Niger and elsewhere in West Africa, said Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc, the former commander of United States Special Operations in Africa. Enemy fighters were killed in some of those unreported episodes, General Bolduc said on Wednesday, but there were no American casualties. The existence of the Dec. 6 firefight was referenced in a terse line in an unclassified report the Trump administration gave to Congress this week about its legal and policy views on using military force. That report, obtained by The Times, mentioned only that a joint American-Nigerien force was attacked by a group of presumed Islamic State militants on that date, and returned fire “in self-defense.”

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    The Army has completed its investigation.

    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, citing improper planning by two junior officers 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 soldiers fought “courageously” after they were ambushed the morning of Oct. 4, but struggled with the overwhelming volume of fire they faced and the terrain, which included swamps, woods and open, dusty fields, U.S. military officials said. The unit included 12 American soldiers and more than 30 Nigeriens, and was attacked by about 100 militants linked with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), the summary said. The American team was called Team Ouallam, after the location of a base they used.
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    The analysis of this will hopefully better our ops next go-around. RIP soldiers
    " I'm old-fashioned. I like two sexes! And another thing, all of a sudden I don't like being married to what is known as a 'new woman'. I want a wife, not a competitor. Competitor! Competitor!" - Spencer Tracy in 'Adam's Rib' (1949)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    Excellent (and thorough) article.

    Thanks.

    Volvo

    “Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”

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    Quote Originally Posted by jimmyz View Post
    The analysis of this will hopefully better our ops next go-around. RIP soldiers
    Hopefully. That is why the Army investigates these sort of incidents.
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    Unhappy

    US Survivors Left Messages for Loved Ones...

    New Niger Ambush Video: US Survivors Left Messages for Loved Ones
    18 May 2018 - One soldier stood alone in a clearing, waving the U.S. flag for rescue in the Niger ambush.
    They were pinned down in a wooded area next to a swamp last Oct. 4 in Niger, expecting to be overrun. They had destroyed their radios to prevent their capture by the enemy, and left final messages for loved ones on personal devices. French helicopters had been circling overhead for 40 minutes but couldn't find them. Then, an as yet unidentified member of Operational Detachment Alpha Team 3212 walked alone into a clearing. He waved a U.S. flag to distinguish himself from the enemy. They had been found, and the firefight that left four U.S. troops, four Nigerien troops and a Nigerien interpreter dead was over.


    Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, and Sgt. La David T. Johnson

    The Americans killed were Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida; Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia. The previously missing details about the joint patrol of members of the Army's Third Special Forces Group and Nigerien forces were released Thursday in the form of a nearly 23-minute, mixed animation and video compact disc. For as yet unspecified reasons, the Pentagon showed only a 10-minute version of the video and animation preceding a briefing May 10 by Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of U.S. Africa Command.

    Waldhauser was accompanied by his chief of staff, Army Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, who led the Article 15-6 fact-finding investigation on the joint patrol known as Team Ouallam, for their base in Niger. Cloutier's investigation was more than 3,000 pages long, but the Pentagon released only an eight-page unclassified summary May 10. The longer, unclassified version of the video and animation had already been shown to the families of the fallen and members of Congress. The shorter version ended with the death under a thorn tree of Sgt. La David Johnson, whose body was not recovered until two days after the ambush. It left unclear what happened afterward. At the outset, the narration of the long version cleared up earlier confusion on the number of troops and vehicles involved, and provided more detailed timelines on the recoveries of the bodies and rescue efforts.

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    We were supporting a French unit in Desert Storm- their medivacs refused to get our wounded because the LZ was hot. One of our guys bled out because of their cowardice.
    Quote Originally Posted by waltky View Post
    US Survivors Left Messages for Loved Ones...

    New Niger Ambush Video: US Survivors Left Messages for Loved Ones
    18 May 2018 - One soldier stood alone in a clearing, waving the U.S. flag for rescue in the Niger ambush.
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    Question

    Niger Is Facing Existential Threat...

    Official: Niger Is Facing Existential Threat
    July 19, 2018 | WASHINGTON — A senior defense official from Niger has told VOA that different militant groups operating along the country’s borders are threatening the security of the state and the region.

    Niger Minister of Defense Kalla Mountari told VOA that the militant groups associated with Islamic State and al-Qaida pose a serious threat to Niger and could infiltrate the country if preemptive measures are not taken against them by regional powers. “Certainly, this is an existential threat to us. Even though they may look weak now, terror groups are still strong in some areas [around us] and their stated intention is to establish a caliphate and bring our countries onto their knees,” Mountari said. He added that the threat of militants could also threaten the security of Europe if they manage to establish safe havens in Niger — given the country’s proximity to Libya and the fact that Libya does not have an effective central government to prevent militants from crossing through the country to enter Europe.


    Niger’s senior defense official warned about the threat of militants amid reports that the United States has begun arming its reconnaissance drones in an effort to collect intelligence on militant groups' whereabouts in the region. The drones are being operated from the country’s capital, Niamey. “They [the U.S.] have answered our calls. This is huge because it will serve as a deterrent to those terrorists who wish to attack us,” Mountari said. “Unlike before when they attack and disappear, knowing we don’t have the means of pursuing them, now they would be hunted and taken out from above,” he added, referring to armed U.S drones.



    In this photo taken April 13, 2018. Nigerien police who are part of the U.S. Special Program for Embassy Augmentation and Response, known as SPEAR take part in the annual U.S.-led Flintlock exercise in Niamey, Niger.



    The U.S. military has confirmed the deployment of armed drones to Niger in an effort to respond to growing threats in the region. “In coordination with the government of Niger, U.S. Africa Command has armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft already in Niger to improve our combined ability to respond to threats and other security issues in the region,” Samantha Reho, a spokeswoman for the U.S military’s Africa Command ( AFRICOM), told VOA. “Niger is in a strategic location surrounded on three fronts by terrorist organizations based in Libya, Mali and Nigeria,” Reho added.


    Last year’s deadly terror attack on a joint U.S.-Nigerien patrol, which was claimed by an Islamic State affiliated group and led to the deaths of four American and several Nigerien soldiers, was a turning point in Niger’s counter-insurgency campaign against militant groups. Senior Nigerien officials say the attack prompted their government to ask the U.S. to speed up the process of arming surveillance drones in the region. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the U.S military in the region said the issue of using armed drones over Niger has been part of ongoing discussion between the U.S. and Niger since well before the October attack on the joint U.S.-Niger patrol.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/official-n...0620.html]Lake Chad region
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