Navy commandos rescue American kidnapped in Niger
WASHINGTON
U.S. Special Operations commandos carried out a predawn raid Saturday to rescue a U.S. citizen who had been kidnapped this past week from his home in southern Niger.
Commandos from the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 rescued the American, Philip Walton, 27, after tracking the phones of his attackers to a hideout in neighboring northern Nigeria, U.S. officials said.
“U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 Oct. in northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men,” Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement Saturday.
Hoffman, who did not identify Walton by name, said he “is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State.” Another official said that Walton had been taken to a U.S. air base in Niamey, Niger’s capital, to reunite with his family.
Hoffman said no U.S. military personnel were injured during the operation. Several of the captors were killed in the raid, U.S. officials said.
Walton, the son of missionaries, lives with his wife and young daughter on a farm near Massalata, a small village close to the border with Nigeria. U.S. and Nigerien officials had said that Walton was seized from his backyard Monday in front of family members after assailants asked him for money. He offered them $40 and was then taken away by the armed gunmen on motorbikes, the officials said. The captors demanded nearly $1 million in ransom for Walton’s release.
One U.S. official said the assailants were criminals who intended to sell Walton to terrorist groups in the region. The operation was organized quickly with the assistance of officials in Niger and Nigeria, the official said.
According to U.S. officials, the rescue started just after midnight local time Saturday when about 30 Navy commandos parachuted into the remote area where the kidnappers had taken Walton. Members of the rescue team hiked about three miles until they came upon the captors’ small encampment in a copse of scrubland bushes and trees.
In the brief but intense firefight that ensued, all but one of the half-dozen or so kidnappers were killed. One captor escaped into the night. Walton was not harmed in the gunbattle, and he walked out to a makeshift landing zone, where a U.S. helicopter whisked him to safety.