4 Dead Americans in Niger?

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4 Dead Americans in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 20, 2017 11:57 am

No Intel, No Air Support and a Body Left Behind: What We Know About the Deadly ISIS Ambush in Niger

U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers from Trump after the botched special forces raid, in a scandal that is growing on a daily basis
read more: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.818114


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The Islamic militants came on motorcycles toting rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns and killed four American service members after shattering the windows of the unarmored U.S. trucks.
In this remote corner of Niger where the Americans and their local counterparts had been meeting with community leaders, residents say the men who came to kill that day had never been seen there before.
“The attackers spoke Arabic and Tamashek, and were light-skinned,” Baringay Aghali told The Associated Press by phone from the remote village of Tongo-Tongo. The terrorists were helped by operational confusion - Niger blocked a U.S. assistance aircraft and French air support, in which the level of coordation between the U.S. and France remains unclear.
Who were the attackers and how did they know the Americans would be there?

No extremist group has claimed responsibility for the deadly ambush on October 4 and the languages reportedly spoken by the jihadists are used throughout the Sahel.

The ambush of U.S. troops in Niger has become the center of controversy in America as President Donald Trump is criticized, including by a grieving family, for the way he spoke to the wife of one soldiers slain in the operation. Some U.S. lawmakers are also calling for a Benghazi-like investigation.
The Niger attack appears to be the work of the Islamic State of the Sahel, a splinter group of extremists loyal to the Islamic State group who are based just across the border in Mali, according to interviews with U.S. officials and authorities in the Sahel region bordering the Sahara Desert. It is led by Adnan Abu Walid who built ties with various extremists before forming his own group.

For several years, American and French forces have provided training and support to the militaries of Mali, Niger and other vulnerable African countries where Islamic extremism has become increasingly entrenched over the past decade. CNN reported that one privately contracted aircraft and French military helicopters helped evacuate American forces and the three bodies, but details remain unclear if "both parties shared all necessary information related to the operation."

The body of  Sgt. La David Johnson, the fallen Green Beret at the center of the controversy surrounding Trump's comments, was originally left behind in Niger during the confusion and returned to the U.S. via Miami on Tuesday.

Some officials believe Walid’s militants are also holding hostage Jeffery Woodke, an American abducted in Niger a year ago. A rebel leader approached by Niger authorities to conduct negotiations for his release confirmed that Walid’s group is holding Woodke, who had spent 25 years as an aid worker in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Now, Walid’s militant group is suspected of the attack that killed four American soldiers this month.

The ambush in Niger highlights how extremist groups have shifted and rebranded since the 2013 French-led military operation ousted them from power in northern Mali. Those extremists lost Mali’s northern cities but regrouped in the desert, including the man suspected of ordering the attack on the Americans.
Walid, 38, also known in some circles as Adnan al-Sahrawi, descends from the Sahrawi people, who are found across southern Morocco, Mauritania and parts of Algeria. He has long been active with Islamic extremists in Mali, at one time serving as the spokesman of the Mali-based group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao during the jihadist occupation in 2012.

That group was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But Walid parted ways and in October 2016 a video circulated on the internet in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

In the year since then he has called for attacks on foreign tourists in Morocco and the UN mission in Western Sahara, according to audio messages released in his name. It is not clear if Walid is receiving financial help from the Islamic State group or if the links are purely ideological.
Walid’s following now includes numerous members of the Peul ethnic group in the Mali-Niger border areas, who are active close to where the attack on the U.S. soldiers took place. Before the attack on the U.S. troops in Niger, Walid’s followers are believed to have staged a series of bloody attacks on military installations in Niger. In February, they were blamed for an assault in Tliwa where a dozen Niger soldiers were slain.

Walid’s Islamic State in the Sahel does not yet pose a threat as great as the al-Qaida militants in the region, though that could shift with time, said Ibrahim Maiga with the Institute for Security Studies in Bamako. Walid clearly appears to have learned from his former colleagues on how to infiltrate and influence locals, he said.

“He has succeeded ... in creating links with local people despite the fact that he is a stranger to the area,” he said.
The growing threat posed by Walid’s group comes as the international community is already facing an escalation in violence across the Sahel. A report by the UN chief obtained this week warned that the security situation in the Sahel is in “a continuous downward spiral.”
Now the UN is urging the international community to finance a 5,000-strong regional force, with the head of the UN saying “the stability of the entire region, and beyond, is in jeopardy.”

The 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Mali has become the most dangerous in the world as Islamic militants routinely attack UN convoys across the north.
And the future of the regional security force known as the G5 Sahel Multinational Force — made up of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger — appears to be in jeopardy.
France, the former colonizer which has a 5,000-strong military operation to help stabilize the region — has been a major financial backer. Funding, though, has come up short.

The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution in June welcoming the deployment, but at U.S. insistence it did not include any possibility of UN financing for the force. So far only one-quarter of the needed funds have been raised, throwing into doubt whether the regional forces will begin operationing this month as scheduled.

Maiga, the Malian security expert, said winning the battle against extremism will not be only a question of firepower. If it were a conventional conflict with two armies respecting roughly the same rules, the G5 would come out stronger.
Jihadist groups, though, are infiltrating the population and exploiting the absence of government in some of these remote areas. That is how Walid’s group may have learned about the visit of the U.S. troops to local communities. Within the communities where troops are attacked, someone is tipping off the extremists.

“The outcome of this battle will not depend solely on the size of the troops,” he said, “but also on the ability of states to regain the confidence of the population.”

read more: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.818114
Last edited by grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:26 am, edited 12 times in total.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:04 pm

Months Before Niger Attack, Congress Was Told US Forces In Africa Needed More Resources

https://www.buzzfeed.com/verabergengrue ... .ktpR3vVAb
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby yeniseri on Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:30 pm

AFRICOM came into existance to fight al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa then proceeded to spread out to counter the various local variants, of which al Shabab is a part of
No doubt, people get carried away with the direction of command but AFRICAN also has training as part of its mission in assisting militaries in the area on the latest developments and intelligence gathering mechanics to defeat the modern enemy.

Background of AFRICOM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ca_Command
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:44 am

 “For months before the ambush, the U.S. military had requested more drones or other surveillance aircraft in Niger and additional military medical support, but those requests met resistance from the U.S. ambassador to the country, who was reluctant to increase the American presence in the country, according to a U.S. official briefed on the attack.”


http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-trum ... story.html
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:45 am

yeniseri wrote:AFRICOM came into existance to fight al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa then proceeded to spread out to counter the various local variants, of which al Shabab is a part of
No doubt, people get carried away with the direction of command but AFRICAN also has training as part of its mission in assisting militaries in the area on the latest developments and intelligence gathering mechanics to defeat the modern enemy.

Background of AFRICOM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ca_Command


Which would back the claim that the US requested more assistance which 45 ignored.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby Steve James on Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:25 am

Which would back the claim that the US requested more assistance which 45 ignored.


No way he'd accept blame for that. But, if he did, he'd end up pointing to Benghazi.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Wed Oct 25, 2017 1:35 pm

We live in a society that simply accepts that our military will be in a never ending war.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby origami_itto on Wed Oct 25, 2017 10:37 pm

Well we spend half our taxes on the military so we like to get our money worth out of them
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:25 pm

Chad is fiercely anti-Boko Harom and was backing the US in the fight until Trump put them on the ban list because they did not have their paperwork ready on time. To retaliate Chad's forces stopped supporting US efforts and now 4 Americans are dead.

Thanks Trump...I am not suprised you did not want this story to get out.
Last edited by grzegorz on Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby Michael on Thu Oct 26, 2017 6:11 am

grzegorz wrote:We live in a society that simply accepts that our military will be in a never ending war.

I have never understood this since I was in high school. I don't even think an anti-war platform is politically advantageous. The war economy has pretty deep roots now. I think only financial consequences will change this, but when you own the world's printing press for money, that might not be a restriction on the military spending either.
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby yeniseri on Thu Oct 26, 2017 7:55 am

grzegorz wrote:
yeniseri wrote:AFRICOM came into existance to fight al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa then proceeded to spread out to counter the various local variants, of which al Shabab is a part of
No doubt, people get carried away with the direction of command but AFRICAN also has training as part of its mission in assisting militaries in the area on the latest developments and intelligence gathering mechanics to defeat the modern enemy.

Background of AFRICOM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ca_Command


Which would back the claim that the US requested more assistance which 45 ignored.


US intelligence was lacking (it appears) especially when you have the expertise of a Team wanting to go in prepped but intelligence sources (the ones that are supposed to give on time/live updates) lacked the vision and even the basics to target the movements of the target!
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Re: What are we doing in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:33 am

Michael wrote:
grzegorz wrote:We live in a society that simply accepts that our military will be in a never ending war.

I have never understood this since I was in high school. I don't even think an anti-war platform is politically advantageous. The war economy has pretty deep roots now. I think only financial consequences will change this, but when you own the world's printing press for money, that might not be a restriction on the military spending either.


I have always said that the "liberal media" is a myth. If the media were liberal then we wouldn't be involved in wars all over the world but I don't blame the media as much as propaganda. I believe people are offended by NFL athletes taking a knee in protest to police brutality because they don't believe in questioning the government, these same offended people eat up the propaganda and vote in those who promise death from above wrongly believing that it is a show of strength because as you said if run on a no war platform you can kiss your shot at a free lifelong government health care plan glodbye. Us vs. Them is how elections are won and a promise to stand up China, which never actually happens but seems to sound good.
Last edited by grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:38 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 4 Dead Americans in Niger?

Postby Michael on Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:27 am

Do so-called liberals outside the media, or Democrats work against war? Maybe there is a left or liberal bias in the media, but that side no longer pretends to be anti-war.

Rep. Kucinich was one of the loudest anti-war voices and he lost his seat. Here's a recent vid about that and Luke Rudowski of We Are Change interviewing him. 8 minutes.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIWHHk-52-8

However, I was disappointed in Kucinich's joint interview with Syrian Pres. Assad i Sep. 2013. I interpreted his questions as just being more of the same talking points that would lead to an escalation and continuation in the Syrian war.

Kucinich, et al with Assad, Vid 1, 28 min



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8aubUmCTh0

Kucinich, et al with Assad, Vid 2, 30 min



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2J6xHRMFuU
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Re: 4 Dead Americans in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:10 pm

I believe you are hitting on why the Bernie bros did not support Clinton. Personally I believe it was an mistake and they are regretting their decision much as these same people regretted letting W into the White House by voting for Ralph Nader, unfortunately most of the Bernie or Bust crowd were too young to know that most of us have seen all this before.

Personally I don't get the worship of the Constituion. Bill of Rights, fair enough but I think a Parliamentary system would put us in a much better situation. As O said half of our tax dollars go the military industrial complex and you mentioned anti-war candidates appear weak. Instead the I will bomb the s*** out of them wins.
Last edited by grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 4 Dead Americans in Niger?

Postby grzegorz on Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:21 pm

Trump is saying he did not authorize Niger, his generals did.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/35713 ... er-mission


The military is not happy about it.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/1 ... e_facebook
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