(Washington, DC) — The recent tragedy in Niger is being fully investigated by the Pentagon. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack by terrorists affiliated with ISIS.
In a briefing today, Defense Secretary James Mattis said investigators do not have all the facts about what transpired. The secretary asked reporters to avoid jumping to conclusions.
Mattis noted that counterterrorism operations are inherently dangerous and said war is war. He insisted that the U.S. is unapologetic about standing by allies in the fight against terrorism.
ABC new reports that “Officials have said between eight and a dozen American troops were involved, a mix of operators and support troopers. Two of those killed were operators who wore the coveted Green Beret and the other two were support soldiers in the unit.
The counter-terrorism official said the U.S. team’s downfall may have been a combination of not having enough, or not accurate enough, “ISR” — intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance scans — of the patrol area before commencing the mission; that it was a team of special operations soldiers with few prior combat deployments among them; the possibility of a compromised mission plan leaked by Nigerien troops to the enemy; or just simply very bad luck, officials said.
“They were set up for failure,” said one 3rd Group veteran, who monitored the incident and its aftermath.”
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