US troops in Niger ambush waited an hour to seek aid

The U.S. Special Forces team caught in a deadly ambush three weeks ago in Niger did not request help from nearby French forces for about an hour after the firefight began near a village the Americans had visited during a reconnaissance mission several hours prior, the Pentagon’s top general said Monday.

It then took the French another hour to get fighter jets over the American troops, according to a new timeline provided by Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The disclosure doubles the amount of time the U.S. troops were believed to have fought without significant additional help.

“This is a very complex situation that they found themselves in, and a pretty tough firefight,” Dunford said.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the battle Oct. 4. Five Nigerien troops also died. The mission has ignited a political firestorm, raising questions about the U.S. military’s broader mission in Africa and why one of the fallen soldiers, Sgt. La David Johnson, was not recovered for two days.

Senior U.S. officials are fairly certain, Dunford said, that when the soldiers left their base Oct. 3, their mission was to conduct a routine reconnaissance patrol to Tongo Tongo, a village near Niger’s border with Mali. Less clear is whether they deviated from that task, whether they had adequate communications to call for help and how Johnson wound up missing.

An ongoing investigation aims to answer those questions, Dunford said.

“What tactical instructions a commander on the ground gave at a given time to cause the units to maneuver, and where they may have been when Sergeant Johnson’s body was found, those are all questions that will be identified during the investigation,” he said, acknowledging the growing perception — both among the American public and lawmakers on Capitol Hill — that the Pentagon has not been forthcoming about the incident.