US halts most combat missions in Africa after deaths
US special operations troops in Africa have been restricted from undertaking missions that might involve direct combat, one of several steps announced yesterday to prevent future casualties after four American soldiers were killed in an October ambush in Niger.
US forces have not conducted any operations to kill or capture militants since the deadly confrontation and are focused almost exclusively on training Nigerien troops and other US allies in the region and expanding an airfield outside Niger’s capital for drone operations, commanders told reporters at a Pentagon news conference on the results of the military investigation into the Niger attack.
‘‘We are now far more prudent in our missions,’’ said Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of US Africa Command, which oversees military operations on the continent.
‘‘US forces are not to be involved in direct combat.’’ The new restrictions are perhaps the most far-reaching consequence of the seven-month investigation into the ferocious October 4 ambush of the dozen American soldiers and more than 30 Nigeriens who battled for their lives during a gunfight lasting more than an hour against about 100 militants 30km south of the Mali border.
The attack caused a public relations furor for the White House last October after President Donald Trump took several days to reach out to the soldiers’ families and then was accused of making insensitive remarks to Sergeant La David Johnson’s widow, which a Democratic congresswoman from Florida said she overheard.
The White House denied that the president’s effort to console the widow was inappropriate.
Johnson was initially unaccounted for and his body wasn’t found until after a two-day search, and then by Nigerien villagers. The search was delayed, the report noted, after the US received inaccurate reports that Johnson was being held prisoner in a village north of the ambush site.
The Pentagon released an eightpage summary of the investigation yesterday, but withheld the entire 6300-page report containing witness statements, photographs and other evidence, saying it was still seeking to have the material declassified.
It also made public portions of a 21-minute video that seeks to reconstruct the more than hour-long attack.
The full video was shown to Congress, but the Pentagon had decided against releasing it publicly in its entirety to avoid making public ‘‘too much information,’’ Waldhauser said.
The investigation blamed ‘‘individual, organisational and institutional failures and deficiencies that contributed to the tragic events of 4 October 2017,’’ according to the summary. But it said that ‘‘no single failure or deficiency was the sole reason.’’
Major General Roger Cloutier Jr, the investigating officer, noted that ‘‘American and Nigerian soldiers fought courageously . . . despite being significantly outnumbered by the enemy,’’ according to the report.
The investigation criticises two Army captains – one in charge of the 12-man unit targeted in the ambush and another at the unit’s Niger headquarters — for not disclosing to superiors before they headed out that they were conducting a potentially dangerous kill-or-capture mission against Doundou Cheffou, the leader of an Islamic State affiliate who is believed to be involved in the kidnapping of a US aid worker.
The officers said they would be meeting with tribal chiefs, which ‘‘inaccurately characterised the nature of the mission,’’ the report said, adding that more senior commanders were unaware of the true goal of the mission.
Since the attacks, the Pentagon has provided armoured vehicles, more drones and other equipment to better protect US troops, Waldhauser said. But the US will only conduct combat missions when critical for protecting the US, he said.
The report did not recommend taking disciplinary action against the officers, Waldhauser said, saying it would be up to US Special Operations Command to decide whether to do so.
US soldiers didn’t train adequately before they deployed and did not conduct battle drills with their Nigerien partners before the mission, the report said.
– LA Times