Actualité militaire au Niger

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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

That is consistent with the observation we all made watching the video.
I guess it was obvious.
However, how could the team get separated from the 30-40 mixed team...for so long? Why were they left alone with no support, basically to die?
Is that lack of camaraderie/leadership? or a human instinct to safe-one’s skin?

Anyway, those adversaries are tough guys, the region is rough, and people are fighters used to struggle and survive. Fighting experiences in Libya, Mali, Chad and other places made them hard. I would not expect that it gets better for that level trained US troops and drones/bombing will only have limited effects.
They know well to hide and won’t make you the favour to gather all on one spot. Afghanization to describe it might be a "too soft" wording what might wait for US troops...

Classified Report Slams Military Over October Deaths in Niger
Culture of excessive risk is faulted in ill-fated mission against Islamists in West Africa

WASHINGTON—Poor training, complacency and a culture of excessive risk contributed to the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during an operation in Niger in October, according to a classified Pentagon report.

The report, described by officials familiar with its contents, details a series of missteps and describes a disregard for military procedures and for the chain of command.

Among other things, the report discloses that low-level commanders, determined to make a mark against local jihadis in the West African nation, took liberties to get operations approved through the chain of command.

In the ill-fated October mission, at least one officer copied and pasted orders from a different mission into the so-called concept of operations to gain approval, the officials said.

The officials who described the report said it wouldn’t recommend punishment for anyone. Ultimately, the Army and the Special Operations Command have the authority to pursue court-martial charges or other disciplinary proceedings against those involved.

Family members of the four fallen soldiers are being briefed this week on the report, which is more than 6,000 pages long.

The investigation stemmed from an Oct. 3, 2017, mission in which about a dozen U.S. soldiers and special-operations force members, along with roughly 30 Nigerien soldiers, set out on what began as a planned meeting with local officials. But by the next day, the troops instead were assigned to another part of the country to search the suspected abandoned house of an associate of Adnan abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, an affiliate of the extremist movement.

They later returned to a village near Tongo Tongo, and after conducting their meeting with local officials, were ambushed by roughly 50 attackers, a two-hour attack that killed two Green Berets, two soldiers assigned to assist special-operations forces and five Nigerien soldiers.

The attack put a spotlight on the expanding U.S. footprint in Africa, with most of the efforts aimed at training local forces battling Islamic State and al Qaeda-affiliated groups. There are roughly 6,000 U.S. troops spread across the continent, according to the Pentagon, including 800 in Niger.

In the months since the ambush, the U.S. military has moved some of the troops tasked with advising local forces in Africa away from the front lines and back into command centers.


Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, left, Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright and Sgt. La David Johnson were killed during a two-hour firefight in Niger on Oct. 4.
Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, left, Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright and Sgt. La David Johnson were killed during a two-hour firefight in Niger on Oct. 4. PHOTO: U.S. ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND/REUTERS
U.S. officials said earlier this month that those changes weren’t the result of the Niger incident, but to increase the safety of military personnel operating in those environments, where there is limited support if troops come into contact with enemy forces.

The report didn’t find fault with the relaxed military operational authorities granted under President Donald Trump. He approved recommendations from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others to allow commanders at lower levels to have decision-making power, according to officials. There is no indication that the rules changes contributed to the incident, said officials who saw the report.

The report includes a series of directives from Mr. Mattis that will apply broadly across the military to provide guidance on training, operational discipline and to reinforce normal protocols within the chain of command. The aim is to avoid a repeat of the missteps leading up to the Niger operation and reduce the chances that such incidents happen again, the officials said.

The Special Operations Command, U.S. Africa Command and the Army all will be given approximately 10 “primary directives” from the Pentagon chief, the officials said. Those organizations will have four months to demonstrate their efforts to solve problems highlighted by the report.


The report will include separate memos with conclusions and assessments from Mr. Mattis, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and from the Africa Command. The report’s release was delayed several times as various Pentagon offices weighed in on the review.

The report has been months in the making, and includes diagrams, maps, testimony from dozens of individuals and other supporting material, including video taken from cameras attached to the soldiers’ helmets, the officials said.

Two copies of the classified version of the report have been provided to two reading rooms on Capitol Hill for lawmakers. A declassified version will be released publicly in coming days after family members are briefed on its contents and following briefings to lawmakers.

One of the four Americans killed, Sgt. La David Johnson, was missing for nearly two days after the attack. Army Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright also died during the attack. The four slain soldiers’ actions during the operation and under ambush were considered valorous, the officials said.

The final military briefing, for Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, is expected next week, according to officials. She is expected to be accompanied by Rep. Frederica Wilson (D., Fla.), a friend of the family.

Mr. Trump’s condolence phone call to Mrs. Johnson sparked a controversy last fall. Ms. Wilson, who was in the car with Mrs. Johnson when she received the call, said that the president was insensitive to the widow, and that the call upset her. Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, said during a White House appearance that Ms. Wilson had politicized the call. Ms. Wilson stood by her account of it.

Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at Nancy.Youssef@wsj.com


https://www.wsj.com/articles/classified ... 1524698730

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Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

Niger/Zinder : la vague d’arrestation systématique des acteurs de la société civile continue
28 avril 2018 DIM Actualités 0


Nous venons d’apprendre l’accusation de Yahaya Badamassi, coordonnateur de l’association Alternatives Espaces Citoyens et membre du cadre de concertation et d’actions citoyennes sous le mobile « d’appel au mouvement insurrectionnel ». Il a été placé sous mandat de dépôt à la maison d’arrêt de Zinder. Cette arrestation porte à 27 le nombre des acteurs de la société nigérienne engagée dans la lutte contre les mesures antisociales et impopulaires contenues dans la loi de finances 2018. https://airinfoagadez.com/2018/04/28/ni ... -continue/

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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

Armées occidentales au Sahel : volonté de pacification ou objectifs inavoués ?
PAR ALGÉRIE MONDE INFOS28 AVRIL 2018
PARTAGER:


David Beasley, directeur exécutif du Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) des Nations unies, a tenu des propos à Bruxelles lors du Sommet sur la Syrie ce 26 avril, qui laissent dubitatif, tant ils rappellent ceux tenus par le général américain Dunford et le sénateur Mac Cain en 2017.

Il affirme que les terroristes de l’État islamique, avec le concours d’Al-Qaïda et de Boko Haram, projetteraient d’utiliser la crise alimentaire pour déstabiliser les pays du Sahel et provoquer une nouvelle vague migratoire à destination de l’Europe.

Leslie Varenne, ancienne journaliste d’investigation, spécialiste de l’Afrique et cofondatrice de l’Institut de veille et d’étude des relations internationales et stratégiques (IVERIS), bat en brèche les propos du cadre onusien :

«Il y a une période de sécheresse actuellement et ce n’est pas la première, cela devient de plus en plus récurrent, donc l’insécurité alimentaire existe et on sait que ce sont tous les problèmes de sécurité alimentaire, de sous-développement, d’accès au soin, à l’éducation, qui font que la jeunesse sans espoir peut se retrouver dans les mains des groupes armées » dit-elle, ajoutant qu’on n’a pas besoin des chefs djihadistes pour cela.

Si la misère renforce les rangs des terroristes, il n’en demeure pas moins que Leslie Varenne rappelle que les déclarations du directeur exécutif du PAM s’inscrivent dans un certain contexte: «Ce qui me frappe, c’est que les propos de David Beasley correspondent exactement à ceux qu’avaient tenu le général américain Dunford et le Sénateur McCain en octobre 2017, dans lesquels ils prévenaient que l’Afrique allait devenir le pivot de Daesh. Ce sont les mêmes propos alarmistes.»

Et d’ajouter : « David Beasley n’est pas connu pour avoir un background dans les relations internationales. Au fond, quand on lit ce papier, pour un directeur du PAM ce sont des propos à minima singuliers voire délirants.»

Rappelant que David Beasley a été nommé à la tête du PAM par Donald Trump et qu’il partage les mêmes stratégies politiques conservatrices que lui, la spécialiste de l’Afrique exprime un large doute sur la thèse annoncée par le haut fonctionnaire onusien : «Depuis les déclarations de Dunford et de McCain, je surveille de près et j’essaye de savoir d’après mes contacts au Sahel s’ils voient arriver des combattants de Syrie et d’Irak dans la région. Aucun de mes contacts n’a relevé l’arrivée de combattants de l’État islamique là-bas.»

Le problème de fond, selon cette spécialiste, est «les chiffres officiels nous donnent entre 500 et 1.000 djihadistes. Après, vous avez des groupes armées d’auto-défense ici et là. On est en train de surmilitariser une zone un peu comme si on allait prendre un marteau piqueur pour taper sur une mouche. Certes, les djihadistes ont quelques capacités de nuisance, certes ils se sont réorganisés depuis la montée en puissance du G-5 Sahel.»

Mais «on se demande si on n’est pas en train de chercher tous les prétextes pour ne pas résoudre les difficultés de manière politique mais de manière militaire et si on n’est pas en train de justifier la présence de toutes les armées étrangères dans cette zone.»

Voilà qui apporte de l’eau au moulin de l’Algérie qui boude le G5 Sahel et refuse obstinément et fort justement de faire intervenir son armée en dehors de ses frontières. D’ailleurs, des voix s’élèvent pour s’interroger sur les véritables motivations de la dernière visite à Alger du général américain à la tête de l’AFRICOM.

Car, selon la spécialiste de l’Afrique, au-delà de la crise alimentaire, le problème principal réside davantage dans la situation politique des États du Sahel plus que dans les difficultés sécuritaires causées par les terroristes présents dans la zone.


Leslie Varenne continue son développement en dénonçant la surreprésentation de forces armées étrangères : Minusma, Barkane, G-5 Sahel, 800 à 1.000 soldats américains rien qu’au Niger et AFRICOM.

«C’est donc une surmilitarisation de la zone qui ne correspond pas aux menaces réelles. Les menaces réelles ne sont pas le terrorisme, mais le sous-développement, l’insécurité alimentaire et le problème des alternances politiques. Les pays qui ont le plus de difficultés, le sont tous pour des raisons politiques. »

D’ailleurs, dira-t-elle, «toutes ces populations commencent à être très sourcilleuses vis-à-vis de leurs souverainetés et commencent à voir d’un très mauvais œil toutes ces armées étrangères qui sont sur leurs sols. Ces armées étrangères confortent le pouvoir en place que ces populations voudraient voir partir. Donc cette présence étrangère crée encore plus de tensions et cela pousse la jeunesse à se tourner vers les groupes armées ou à fuir.»

Leslie Varenne affirme même que les politiques stratégiques et militaires des États-Unis et des pays européens permettent finalement de maintenir les problèmes que vivent les populations du Sahel en soutenant les gouvernements en place.

«On est bien dans un cercle vicieux à l’afghane : les présidents en place, aidés par les armées étrangères, font la chasse aux terroristes, et comme elles sont vues par les locaux comme des armées d’occupation, cela pousse les hommes dans les bras des groupes terroristes.»

Leslie Varenne conclut : «On sait très bien, depuis la Turquie d’Erdogan, comment on peut instrumentaliser des vagues migratoires. On sait très bien, depuis la chute de Kadhafi, comment cela s’est passé. Mais est-ce que ce sont les chefs de l’État islamique qui décident de cela ? Je suis très perplexe. […] Ce n’est pas Daech, c’est la situation politique, sociale et sécuritaire des pays, qui créeront ou pas une vague migratoire plus importante.»

Alors, éradication du terrorisme islamiste au Sahel, objectif avéré des capitales occidentales ou alibi à une présence militaire pérenne dans la région pour des objectifs bien peu avouables ?


http://www.algeriemondeinfos.com/2018/0 ... -inavoues/

numidia
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par numidia »

la réponse est connue depuis bien longtemps, ils se fichent complètement des populations
qu'elles aillent gonflés les rangs des "groupes armés" (terroristes ou non) ou qu'elles partent (émigration), c'est tout bénéf pour exploiter tranquillement les richesses,
alors que l'uranium en fait un pays potentiellement très riche, le Niger est un des pays les plus pauvres, espérance de vie de moins de 50 ans, très peu de conditions sociales satisafaisantes, et c'est Areva qui fait la pluie et le beau temps pour l'uranium

donc s'ils avaient voulu le bien des gens, leur santé, leur bien être, s'ils avaient voulu les aider, ils auraient dû commencer par payer correctement ces pays qui fournissent leurs trésors du sous-sol, ne pas s'ingérer dans le pays et en faire une de leur marionnette
si un président s'insurge, pas de problème, il est dégagé et un pantin prendra sa place
que des Africains parlent désormais dans divers pays d'Afrique de l'ouest, de chasser le néo-colonialisme et voilà que des tas d'opérations anti-terroristes voient le jour ...

quant au terrorisme réel, celui qu'ils ont aidé à se développer (rien que les événements en Libye en disent long), ils n'utilisent que des méthodes qui ne règlent rien sur la durée et surtout n'écoutent personne

comme on l'a vu récemment en Syrie
comme on l'a vu sur le Mali ces dernières années
Image

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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

500 millions, sounds like much...for noble causes:
by investing more than $500 million over the next few years into local programs for better governance, education, health, agriculture, security and more....

....doing the maths: 2018,106 million in sub-Saharan Africa. About $50 million of that is dedicated to State Department counterterrorism programs in West and Central Africa, including ones in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Mauritania.The crisis response program in Mali eventually will be replicated in Niger, where the Antiterrorism Assistance Program has dedicated roughly $10 million to training and equipment this year.

Most money is spend on security, is that right? Thus people development is almost zero. The remaining few dollar went in the past money into doggy projects.
We will see and make accounts on the number of new schools, new streets, new wells, new hospitals etc...any long term and lasting development.
...hopefully all invested north from the river niger. The more north the better.



Under the watchful eyes of U.S. authorities, an elite group of local police officers in Niger’s capital slipped into a home, rescued a « hostage, » detained an « extremist » and pretended to kill another.

The police training in one of Africa’s most remote, impoverished countries is crucial as extremists linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida carry out increasingly bold attacks in West Africa’s vast Sahel region. In October, four U.S. soldiers and five Nigeriens were killed in an ambush claimed by Islamic State group-linked fighters in rural Niger.

Amid questions over the role of the U.S. military in this part of the world, there is a renewed focus on training local law enforcement officers in the hopes that extremism can be better countered at the community level and along borders. The challenges are great in Niger, where residents of its vast, largely ungoverned spaces say they are losing confidence in authorities.

As extremism grows « it’s important not to lose sight of the issues at the core of their proliferation and recruitment success, notably bad and often abusive governance, » said Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch’s West Africa director. « The Islamist groups are cleverly exploiting local grievances to make inroads with local populations. »

That includes abusive practices by local security forces, she said, calling efforts to professionalize them key.

The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Eric P. Whitaker, said the U.S. is addressing the « factors that create an environment for extremism » by investing more than $500 million over the next few years into local programs for better governance, education, health, agriculture, security and more.

The State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance Program also is addressing such concerns by training local security forces in everything from border control and investigations to human rights and justice.

After an attack killed 20 people at a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital in November 2015, the U.S. invested $15 million in training nearly 100 local police in crisis response. They also were given the necessary equipment to respond to further attacks, according to Samuel L. Pineda, director in the office of programs with the department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism.

The program has paid off, he said. Several of the trained officers responded during the March 2016 attack on the European Union military training mission’s headquarters in Bamako. And during the June 2017 attack on a resort popular with foreigners outside the capital they helped to kill attackers and rescue victims.

« We want to create transparent forces and we want the people to trust those forces, » Pineda said. « Nobody wants their local market blown up … so if they have the trust of the population, the information comes back in. »

In 2018, the Bureau of Counterterrorism will invest an estimated $106 million in sub-Saharan Africa.

About $50 million of that is dedicated to State Department counterterrorism programs in West and Central Africa, including ones in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Mauritania.

The crisis response program in Mali eventually will be replicated in Niger, where the Antiterrorism Assistance Program has dedicated roughly $10 million to training and equipment this year.

During the U.S. military’s annual Flintlock counterterrorism exercises this month in Niger local officers put their training to the test, collaborating with Niger’s gendarmerie and military as well as security forces from other West African nations.

The officers who participated in the raid in the capital, Niamey, are part of the Special Program for Embassy Augmentation and Response, known as SPEAR, which was created after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya to train and equip host nation police units designated as first responders to U.S. diplomatic facilities in crisis. They also can respond to other attacks.

« We train them for an eventuality, » said Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Kent Miller, who manages the Antiterrorism Assistance Program in Niger. « In the current year and last year there has been a focus on rural environments. »

The goal is to disrupt extremists at borders so they don’t make it into more populated areas, he said.

In cities, the hope is that crisis response units and SPEAR officers will respond. They are provided with arms, ammunition, equipment, facilities for practicing raids, a gun range and mentorship.

« The importance of training is that it puts the elements of knowledge for reaction in our hands, and we can then apply them in real-world situations, » said Djibril Ousmane, an assistant police commander in the capital.

The challenge, however, is that extremists also are giving money to communities to win them over, he said.

« It’s difficult to fight poverty, » Ousmane said. « With the right means, more can be done. »

Source: Associated Press/Image: In this photo taken Friday, April 13, 2018. Nigerien police who are part of the U.S. Special Program for Embassy Augmentation and Response, known as SPEAR take part in the annual U.S.-led Flintlock exercise in Niamey, Niger. Amid questions over the role of the U.S. military in West Africa’s vast Sahel region, the State Department is pouring millions of dollars into training local law enforcement officers in the hopes that extremism can be better countered at the community level.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/0 ... emism.html

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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

That is the place around lake chad, where a major operation of G5 and western forces is ongoing as we speak.
With Diffa airfield, where presumably US troops are based. In other words right under their nose.
Well probably too many questions...what is going on there? :fou:
LEAD Niger : plusieurs véhicules militaires enlevés dans une attaque terroriste
Par : french.china.org.cn |  Mots clés : Niger-attaque-terroriste
French.china.org.cn | Mis à jour le 30-04-2018

Des individus lourdement armés ont attaqué dimanche soir une position des Forces de défense et de sécurité (FDS) nigériennes près de Diffa (extrême sud-est du Niger), proche de la frontière du Nigeria, apprend-on de sources concordantes locales.

Plusieurs véhicules des FDS ont été emportés par les assaillants, selon les mêmes sources qui ne donnent cependant aucun bilan.

Cette attaque terroriste intervient après une relative accalmie dans la région, grâce notamment
aux opérations de grande envergure engagées depuis plus d'un an par une force multinationale mixte composée des armées du Tchad, du Niger, du Cameroun et du Nigeria, contre le groupe terroriste Boko Haram. De plus, face à la persistance des attaques meurtrières de Boko Haram, la région est placée sous état d'urgence depuis février 2015.


Les localités de la région de Diffa, notamment celles frontalières du Nigeria, subissent depuis plus de trois ans des attaques à répétition de la secte terroriste, à partir de ses positions nigérianes, qui ont fait des centaines de victimes civiles et militaires nigériennes et des milliers de déplacés du Niger et du Nigeria.

http://french.china.org.cn/foreign/txt/ ... 032932.htm.
Niger : opérations «en cours» contre Boko Haram dans le bassin du lac Tchad
30 AVRIL 2018 PUBLIÉ DANS SOCIÉTÉ

Image d'illustrationUne opération militaire d’envergure est «en cours» dans le bassin du lac Tchad pour débarrasser la zone «des résidus de Boko Haram», a annoncé dimanche soir le ministre nigérien de la Défense.

«Une opération est actuellement en cours. Cette opération est normalement montée pour que nous débarrassions ces zones (du lac Tchad) des résidus de Boko Haram», un groupe jihadiste basé dans le nord-est du Nigeria, a affirmé Kalla Moutari sur la télévision privée Ténéré de Niamey.

Une fois terminée, cette opération permettra également «d’installer nos systèmes de sécurité» et de favoriser le «retour» des milliers de personnes ayant fui depuis 2015 les îles du lac, a déclaré le ministre.

Bien que «totalement affaibli», Boko Haram représente néanmoins «une menace réelle», a estimé le ministre, sans donner de précision sur le début et la fin des opérations, ni sur les contingents qui y participent.

Début avril, le bureau de l’ONU à Niamey avait fait état d'«opérations militaires en cours» dans les îles du lac Tchad par «la Force mixte multinationale» (composée du Cameroun, du Tchad, du Niger et du Nigeria). Cette «offensive militaire» contre Boko Haram devait être menée «d’avril à juin», selon l’ONU.

Les Nations unies redoutent d’ailleurs que ces opérations n’entraînent le déplacement de «plus de 15 000 personnes» vivant encore sur les îles vers la terre ferme. Après un raid très meurtrier contre des positions de l’armée nigérienne, les autorités de Diffa avaient fait évacuer en mars 2015 quelque 25.000 personnes des îles du lac Tchad.

Depuis son commencement en 2009, le conflit provoqué par Boko Haram a conduit au déplacement de 2,4 millions de personnes dans le nord du Nigeria ainsi qu’au Cameroun, au Tchad et au Niger, selon le Haut Commissariat aux Réfugiés (HCR) de l’ONU. Fin janvier 2018, le HCR a lancé un appel de fonds de 157 millions de dollars (127 millions d’euros) pour venir en aide aux réfugiés déracinés par les violences de Boko Haram dans la région du lac Tchad.

Sur le plan économique, le conflit avec Boko Haram dans la région de Diffa, proche du nord-est du Nigeria, retarde la construction d’un oléoduc pour exporter vers le Cameroun, via le Tchad, le pétrole brut produit par le Niger. Niamey a récemment annoncé le début des travaux pour fin 2018.

AFP

30 avril 2018
Source : http://www.liberation.fr/
Dernière modification par malikos le 02 mai 2018, 21:38, modifié 1 fois.

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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

ils commence a comprendre et voir la realite...
Officiellement, elles cherchent à lutter contre le terrorisme, mais les interventions des acteurs extérieurs s’inscrivent davantage dans la défense de leurs intérêts.
27 APR 2018 / PAR IBRAHIM MAÏGA ET NADIA ADAM

L’empreinte militaire extérieure, notamment celle des États-Unis et de la France, s’accroît en Afrique de l’Ouest et particulièrement au Sahel. Pourtant, face à des opinions publiques de plus en plus hostiles à cette présence jugée envahissante, ces interventions risquent de s’avérer inefficaces ou, pire, contre-productives.

Le 6 avril 2018, le président ghanéen Nana Akufo-Addo déclarait : « Il n’y aura pas de base militaire américaine au Ghana ». Il répondait ainsi aux protestations soulevées par la signature d’un accord de coopération en matière de défense avec les États-Unis. Quatre mois plus tôt, au Niger, les autorités avaient démenti avoir autorisé l’envoi de soldats italiens dans le Nord du pays, où des bases américaines et française étaient déjà positionnées.

Autrefois limitées au conseil, à la formation et à l’équipement des armées nationales de la région, les forces militaires étrangères, depuis le déclenchement de la crise malienne de 2012, ont accru le déploiement de troupes au sol ainsi que l’installation des bases logistiques ou militaires. Au Mali, en 2013, l’intervention des troupes françaises dans le cadre de l’opération Serval a permis de stopper l'avancée des groupes extrémistes violents vers le sud du pays et leur éviction des grandes villes.

Présenter cette zone du Sahel, comme la nouvelle frontière d’un « djihad » mondial comporte des risques importants
Dans ce capharnaüm militaire, le Mali et le Niger, au carrefour de l’instabilité régionale, sont devenus des terrains privilégiés pour les puissances occidentales. Ces dernières, bien qu’ayant recours aux mêmes arguments sécuritaires pour justifier leur présence, poursuivent des objectifs parfois différents.


Si la lutte contre le terrorisme demeure l’enjeu principal pour les Américains dans la région, il semble que des partenaires européens, comme l’Allemagne et l’Italie, soient aussi motivés par la question migratoire. L’annonce du gouvernement italien, en décembre 2017, de sa décision d’envoyer des troupes au Niger pour combattre le terrorisme répondrait davantage à une volonté d’exercer un contrôle plus étroit sur les flux migratoires. Selon l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations, plus de 75 % des migrants et réfugiés parvenus en Europe en 2017 sont entrés par l’Italie et nombreux sont ceux ayant transité par le Niger.

La participation de l’Allemagne à la Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA) avec un millier de soldats et l’ouverture d’une base logistique au Niger consolide sa présence au Sahel, une zone au cœur des dynamiques migratoires.

La montée en puissance des groupes extrémistes violents et de la criminalité organisée au Sahel, ayant conduit au renforcement de la présence militaire étrangère, a été précédée d’un affaiblissement des États de la région. La situation de ces pays, qui font face à une mauvaise gouvernance caractérisée par une corruption endémique, un système de justice défaillant, une incapacité à fournir les services sociaux de base et à intégrer les espaces périphériques, favorise l’ancrage local et la résilience des groupes extrémistes violents de la violence auprès des populations.

Au Mali, forces françaises sont de plus en plus critiquées par l’opinion publique
Si la France est intervenue à la demande des autorités maliennes de transition de l’époque, au nom d’un passé commun, elle l’a fait aussi et surtout pour protéger ses ressortissants et défendre ses intérêts stratégiques, y compris économiques, dans la région
.


À titre d’exemple, le pays continue d’importer du Niger voisin la majeure partie de l’uranium indispensable à son énergie nucléaire. L’intervention de la France, baptisée Serval, en janvier 2013, a laissé la place, six mois plus tard, à l’Opération Barkhane – au coût financier d’environ un million d’euros par jour – dont la zone d’action est élargie aux cinq pays du G5 Sahel : Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritanie, Niger et Tchad.

Tandis que la présence française est fortement médiatisée, d’autres pays tels que les États-Unis et l’Allemagne, se font plus discrets. En octobre 2017, quatre commandos américains et cinq militaires nigériens ont perdu la vie à Tongo Tongo, localité située à la frontière avec le Mali, dans une embuscade revendiquée par l’État islamique dans le Grand Sahara (EIGS). Cette attaque a révélé au grand public l’ampleur de la présence militaire des États-Unis au Niger, et plus largement dans la région.

Elle a également démontré, une fois de plus, que les groupes terroristes, bien que traqués par les pays de la région et leurs alliés, conservent une capacité de nuisance et recourent à des modes opératoires de plus en plus complexes. Cependant, la présentation de cette zone du Sahel, dans la rhétorique qui a suivi l’attaque de Tongo Tongo, comme la nouvelle frontière d’un « djihad » mondial comporte des risques importants.

De nombreuses études soulignent en effet la nécessité de prendre en compte les dynamiques locales dans le développement et l’expansion des groupes armés terroristes dans la région. Ces groupes exploitent, entre autres, les griefs des populations contre la gouvernance étatique ainsi que les tensions entre les différentes communautés socioprofessionnelles – à l’image des conflits pouvant opposer les éleveurs aux agriculteurs – pour s’ériger en garant de l’ordre social.

La décision des États-Unis de donner plus d’autonomie aux troupes déployées sur le terrain paraît dangereuse
Par ailleurs, la décision des États-Unis de donner plus d’autonomie aux troupes déployées sur le terrain paraît dangereuse. Dans un tel contexte, les erreurs de ciblage risquent d’être exploitées par les groupes extrémistes violents pour consolider leur présence et d’affecter l'efficacité des interventions.


Ces derniers mois, les signes d’un mécontentement populaire contre la présence militaire extérieure se sont multipliés dans la région. Accueillies dans un consensus quasi-général au Mali, en janvier 2013, les forces françaises sont de plus en plus critiquées par l’opinion publique.

Cette hostilité a débouché sur l’émergence de mouvements de protestation au cours des derniers mois, à travers le pays, pour dénoncer la politique de la France, accusée parfois d’accointance avec les anciens groupes rebelles. Au Niger, également, des manifestants, répondant à l’appel d’une coalition d’organisations de la société civile, scandaient en février dernier : « Armées française, américaine et allemande, allez-vous en ! », accusant leurs autorités de brader la souveraineté du pays.

La multiplication des interventions au Sahel répond d’abord à une volonté des puissances occidentales de défendre leurs intérêts stratégiques, qu’ils soient d’ordre sécuritaire, politique, diplomatique ou économique. Le masquer ou tenter de le dissimuler contribuerait davantage à renforcer l’image d’une région victime de simples calculs géopolitiques de la part d’acteurs extérieurs.

Ibrahim Maïga, Chercheur, ISS Bamako et Nadia Adam, Chercheure boursière, ISS Dakar
https://issafrica.org/fr/iss-today/que- ... s-au-sahel

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

encore plus du chaos...
Mopti, Gao : Quand des véhicules disparaissent un peu partout
Kibaru-4 mai 2018


Gao : Enlèvement du véhicule du coordinateur de l’APEJ le 2 mai dernier
C’est arrivé le 2 mai derniers, aux environs de 17h 30, près du petit marché du quartier château. Deux hommes armés sur des motos ont enlevé le véhicule du coordinateur de l’Agence pour la Promotion de l’Emploi des jeunes (APEJ) Gao. Ils ont d’abord menacé ce dernier de débarquer de son véhicule, avant de disparaitre dans la nature. Abandonnant sur place leur moto.

Pour l’heure, on ignore encore les auteurs de ce rapt, toujours est-il que de pareils cas sont fréquents à Gao. On se rappelle que quelques jours plus tôt, c’était autour du véhicule du Fond d’Appui à la Formation Professionnelle et à l’Apprentissage (FAFPA) d’être enlevé devant l’école privée « Le Liptako ». Le même jour, un véhicule de l’armée avait également disparu.

Pourtant, des mesures ont été prises pour limiter ces enlèvements de véhicules à Gao, mais la situation ne fait que s’empirer malgré la présence de plusieurs forces dans la ville.gao1_Lqwds2f_825066275

Douentza (Mopti) : Le véhicule de l’Académie pédagogique enlevé
Selon les informations reçues, le véhicule Land Cruiser de l’Académie de Douentza, a été enlevé le 2 mai dernier par des individus armés non identifié, à Douentza, dans la région de Mopti. C’est arrivé lorsque le directeur rentrait chez lui pour se garer. C’est ainsi qu’il a été intercepté par deux hommes armés sur une moto. Après avoir réussi à faire descendre ce dernier de son véhicule, les assaillants ont disparu dans la nature abandonnant leur moto.

Source : Kibaru, http://maliactu.net/mali-mopti-gao-quan ... u-partout/

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

as if jihadist grow there on trees or it is something genetic. TERRORISM IS ABOUT CONDITIONS....change those and it will go as it came.
Wake up...
Europe and USA take the fight against Jihadism to Niger
By Euronews

last updated: 03/05/2018
Europe and USA take the fight against Jihadism to Niger

Niger has been increasingly playing a pivotal role in the global struggle against jihadism since the terrorist threat has been quickly shifting from the middle-east to Africa.

The special forces of the Sahel country are being trained and supported by Western military personnel. The doctrine consists of rolling back and eventually destroying the jihadists in their own desert sanctuaries, even beyond Niger’s borders.

Last October four members of the 3rd Special Forces group of the US army lost their lives in an ambush carried out near the border with Mali, the country that, so far, has been suffering most of the consequences of the Libyan civil war

Major-General J. Marcus Hiks, Commander of SOCA, says: “All of my African partners here will tell you that the collapse of Libya is absolutely causal in increased instability across the region, the flow of weapons and trained armed militias has destabilized Northern Mali and continues to feed the terrorist groups across the Sahel."

According to Western strategists, Niger could become the junction of Jihadism that connects war-torn Mali, and terrorist groups such as Boko Haram from Nigeria, Al Shabab from the Horn of Africa and the ISIS members sheltered in their Libyan strongholds.

The US is increasing its presence in Niger, along with France, the former colonial power in this area, Germany, the UK, Italy and other western countries. The aim is to contain illegal immigration and eradicate jihadism, two relatively associated phenomena that, according to military analysts, are undermining the stability of Europe.

They operate in partnership with the African regional powers such as Nigeria and Chad. These countries joined the 2018 Flintlock, military exercises that were supposed to build mutual confidence among the participants.

Says Colonel Razak Ibrahim from the Niger special forces: "The traditional extremists groups use the immigrant network because immigrants and refugees are very very vulnerable and easy to recruit. The jihadists take advantage of that situation to infiltrate all the countries thanks to them."

The goal of the current Niger’s government and its western supporter also consists of sealing the borders with Libya, through which human traffickers and terrorists share the same routes and, often, the same business.

"The whole criminal economy is feeding the terrorism, says the NIger Defence Minister, Kalla Moutari. Those who take the immigrants to go to Libya, they come back with the arms. They are also involved in drug trafficking.

The fight on terror is also about relying upon local law enforcement structures. According to the US State department, that’s a fundamental confidence-building measure that is needed to conquer hearts and minds of local people.

Sam Pineda from the US State Department, Counter-terrorism unit, says: “When border security forces, for example, are out on the borders and pick up individuals, that they can transfer those folks to the civilian institutions. They can do the investigations and they can process them through a rule of law construct here, inside the country.”

The Northern Niger city of Agadéz has been a strategic crossroad for any kind of illegal activity since the collapse of Libya in 2012. It offered a safe trail to the terrorists, it represented an alternative route for drug smugglers and provided an easy junction to human traffickers.

The Red Horses, the USAF engineering unit, is constructing in Agadez an airfield to become operational from early 2019. It will be formally an air base of Niger, but the US will use it for their own military aircraft.

Agadez airfield is supposed to host the Americans RPAs (drones) MQ-9 Reaper. They are to be used mainly for recce missions. But according to a bilateral agreement between Washington and Niamey, the drones can also carry weapons in case of need, once they have been given the green light by the government of Niger.

There is a relevant segment of Niger people are against the presence of the foreign armies. They think that it sends the wrong message to send to the people who live in the remote areas of the country. Villagers can easily turn to jihadism, activists say, and Niger could become a kind of Afghanistan in Africa

Activist Kaka Touda says: "They are carrying out military operations, they have drones, planes, and soldiers on the ground. But as long as they don't have the civilian population on their side, the foreign forces will be useless and ineffective. Because they didn't earn the trust (of the local population) first."

The EU is particularly concerned, Brussels thinks that terrorism and illegal immigration could become a lethal mix for its own stability and eventually survival.

Raul Mateus Paula, The EU ambassador to Niger, says: "Europe's security depends on what happens here. It's very important because you see very well that Europe was threatened by terrorism, attacks, drug and human beings trafficking."

Police and military missions are the key to safeguarding European security against terrorism, illegal immigration and crime. But locals demand jobs, human development and economic opportunities. The EU and the USA will have to show that security and development are compatible.

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

at least policing.....better than search and destroy
EUCAP Sahel Niger: new head of mission appointed
Frank Van der Mueren, a Belgian senior police official, has been appointed as new Head of the European Union's civilian capacity building mission in Niger, EUCAP Sahel Niger. Frank Van der Mueren was previously seconded to EUCAP Sahel Mali as deputy Head of Mission and Chief of Staff since 2016. He has already worked for EUCAP Sahel Niger between 2012 and 2014.

EUCAP Sahel Niger was launched in 2012 to support capacity building of the Nigerien security actors. The mission provides advice and training to support the Nigerien authorities in strengthening their security capabilities. It contributes to the development of an integrated, coherent, sustainable, and human rights-based approach among the various Nigerien security agencies in the fight against terrorism and organised crime. On 18 July 2016 its mandate was amended to also assist the Nigerien central and local authorities, as well as the security forces in developing policies, techniques and procedures to better control and address irregular migration.

Frank Van der Mueren takes over from Ms Kirsi Henriksson, who had held the post from July 2016 to March 2018.

The decision was formally taken by the Political and Security Committee on 2 May 2018. The term of the new Head of Mission will initially run until 15 July 2018, the current end of the mission's mandate

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press ... appointed/

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

left behind to die...
new details reveal the nature of the capture or kill mission with CIA involvement.
US soldiers killed in Niger were outgunned, 'left behind' in hunt for ISIS leader
By JAMES GORDON MEEK May 3, 2018, 1:05 PM ET

PHOTO: Members of the army honor guard fold the flag above the casket of US Army Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service on October 21, 2017 in Hollywood, Florida. Johnson and three other US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger on October 4.Gaston de Cardenas/AFP/Getty Images
WATCHNew details from Niger ambush
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Four Army special operations soldiers killed in action during an ambush in Niger last October were part of a largely inexperienced and lightly-armed team outmatched by ISIS fighters who exploited bad decisions by U.S. commanders, families of the fallen soldiers and other sources briefed on the military investigation told ABC News.

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"They were left on their own and it was The Alamo. They were abandoned," the parent of one of the American commandos who died told ABC News. "The sad thing is, they didn't realize they'd been left behind, and by the time the other guys attempted to get to them, it was probably too late, and they'd been killed."

Two Army Green Berets, Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, 29, and Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35, and an Army support enabler, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, 39, were killed fighting in one location near the remote village of Tongo Tongo, after they were surrounded while attempting to withdraw from the fight.

Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, was killed later at a second location more than 700 yards away after he was unintentionally left behind while fighting alongside Nigerien partner forces. He remained missing for almost 36 hours before his remains were found.

Almost four hours after the fight began, a Nigerien response force arrived and discovered Johnson and Wright's bodies had been loaded in the back of a pickup truck by the ISIS fighters. Black's body lay on the ground next to the vehicle.

"They were going to take the bodies away but they were scared off," said a member of a second family briefed by U.S. Africa Command investigators over the past week.

A cellphone video released by the militants in March showed that the three Americans had been stripped down by the enemy after they were killed. Even their boots, wallets and jewelry were stolen.

"The Army had never told us that they'd been stripped of kit and weapons,” said a second grieving parent of one of the soldiers. “Their bodies were piled in a truck.”

All of the family members, who endured grueling day-long briefings by U.S. Africa Command investigating officers over the past week, requested anonymity when speaking to ABC News for fear the Pentagon will retaliate against them by cutting off the flow of information.

They described a perfect storm of bad decisions and bad luck punctuated with extraordinary heroism and valor. They also expressed anguish and anger about media leaks blaming the team as well as the changing and often inaccurate narrative provided to the families and the public by Pentagon officials.

At least one family was told initially that their relative was killed by a mortar round —- which both an autopsy report and video captured by a helmet camera recently released online by the militants ultimately proved was untrue. He was killed in a close-range shootout alongside two of his fellow soldiers.

“I knew they had lied about it,” a relative told ABC News. “And the thing is, they didn't need to.

Many officials last fall repeated such inaccuracies to the press and the families about the combat incident, leading to confusion and suspicion.


Officials initially described the ambushed team as a combined force of no more than 10 Americans and Nigeriens conducting a "simple reconnaissance mission." In fact, the team included 10 American special operations soldiers, an American intelligence contractor, a Nigerien interpreter and 34 Nigerien partner forces tasked with targeting the top ISIS leader in the Niger-Mali border region, the families have been told in the past week.
But the small team of Green Berets and Army enablers -- from Operational Detachment-Alpha 3212, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, deployed to "train, advise and assist" Nigerien forces -- had almost no overseas combat deployments among them. Few of the Americans on the team had even trained together, sources said. The men were not ready or prepared for the mission they found themselves on, according to family members and other unit veterans.

"That team was failed before they got there. It was made up of inexperienced, not effectively-trained junior NCOs," said one family member, referring to non-commissioned officers. "There also were tactical decisions where they just f----- up. This was avoidable."


At least twice during the three-hour gunfight the team leader -- a U.S. Army captain with only one prior combat deployment, to Afghanistan, before he earned his Green Beret -- unintentionally lost "accountability" (a term referring to a soldier’s location and condition in battle) of two groups of his men: three soldiers in one location and a fourth with Nigerien troops in a separate location.

Once he lost sight of each of them, he did not regain accountability of all of his soldiers until after the battle. All were found dead.

"The worst circumstances fell upon them and the team came apart. But that failure started well before the bullets started flying," agreed Derek Gannon, a former Green Beret with combat deployments in Iraq, who is now a military writer. "It was a complete and total command failure. They failed this team. Within a day, the Pentagon started forming a narrative to blame the team rather than the conditions they were forced into."

The American commandos were plagued by bad decisions that had devastating consequences, many of which were explained to the families over the past week by the lead investigating officer, Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, Jr., chief of staff at AfriCom. Despite that, the investigation by AfriCom was not intended to find fault in actions within its own chain of command or its policies.

A 300-page summary report will be released to the public, but almost 6,000 pages in the report will be kept confidential, officials have said. The AfriCom report is not expected to detail the involvement of other government agencies such as the CIA, which numerous officials told ABC News had outfitted one of the convoy vehicles with electronic collection equipment and trained several Nigeriens to operate it.

The Pentagon, however, has denied any CIA role. On Oct. 24, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters, “I have no knowledge of CIA involvement.”

CIA officials declined comment yesterday.


Early on Oct. 4, the general told the families, the men were tasked to provide "backup" support for what Cloutier called a “special operations team” in Arlit — which multiple sources have told ABC News were from an American black ops unit hunting Doundou Cheffou, the leader of ISIS in the Greater Sahara and code-named "Naylor Road" by the U.S.

The Arlit black ops team was to fly in and try to capture or kill Cheffou, with the other team nearby to prevent ISIS fighters from fleeing the U.S. raid. However, the Arlit black ops team had to turn back after severe headwinds grounded their helicopters after leaving their base more than 400 miles away, according to the family members and other ABC sources.

After completing the mission in Tiloa early that morning, Team 3212 was tasked by their battalion commander with searching a campsite on the Mali border used by Cheffou and his men, which a drone overhead showed was not occupied. The order was based on a request from the same black ops team in Arlit whose mission to confront Cheffou had just been scratched, several sources told ABC News.

Last fall, a U.S. intelligence source and Nigerien commanders each told ABC News that the American and Nigerien team leaders objected to the task because they were not heavily armed or equipped for intense combat should they encounter Cheffou's ISIS fighters alone. But the team leaders' concerns were overruled by a higher command, a U.S. source briefed last week confirmed.

Team 3212 was at a disadvantage because there wasn’t a proper handoff with the Special Forces team they had replaced a few weeks earlier -- they had not even overlapped for one day at the outpost in Ouallam, family members said. Another weakness was that not all of the Green Berets, including the senior engineer and intelligence sergeants, were on the mission to Tiloa. Four Green Berets remained back in their outpost, the families said.

Three family members who attended three briefings by Africa Command investigators over the past 10 days provided an account to ABC News of the ISIS campsite search and the battle that later ensued. Their accounts were matched against reporting from many confidential ABC News sources familiar with the incident over the past seven months.

The team went to the campsite, conducted what is called a "sensitive site exploitation" and burned a motorcycle found there. They started to return to base, leaving the unarmed surveillance drone overhead to deplete its last two hours of fuel and watch for any returning militants, the family members and sources told ABC News.

They were only 20 miles to the south when the Nigerien commander said he wanted to detour to the nearby village of Tongo Tongo because he wanted get water and breakfast, the families were told. Other sources say the black ops team from Arlit requested that they repeat what they'd done earlier in Tiloa, to look around the village and determine whether Cheffou would feel welcome there.

"They were expecting no trouble whatsoever,” one soldier’s parent said. “They didn't even put out perimeter security.”

PHOTO: A U.S. special forces soldier demonstrates how to detain a suspect during a U.S.-led international training mission for African militaries, in Diffa, Niger, March 4, 2014. Joe Penney/Reuters
A U.S. special forces soldier demonstrates how to detain a suspect during a U.S.-led international training mission for African militaries, in Diffa, Niger, March 4, 2014. more +
The Americans met village elders. They took a group photo with them. But they lingered more than an hour in a village they'd never visited before, near an ISIS camp they had just searched and burned, Cloutier told the families.

A U.S. intelligence source told ABC News last fall that the village elder "was definitely stalling as long as he could" to keep the Americans there, even showing the Americans a child with an illness and grabbing a goat he wanted to slaughter for them. But the decision to linger was not up to the Tongo Tongo elder, whom the AfriCom investigation cleared, according to the families and others briefed.

It was, ultimately, the team leader’s decision.

"It was very bad judgment. They were in the village for 90 minutes. Everything pointed to red flags," another relative said. "It was the team leader's decision whether to stay or go, not the elder's decision. This is where it begins to fall apart tactically."

The families said they were told that as the convoy of six vehicles departed Tongo Tongo at 10:35 a.m., they began taking small arms fire from the village to the North and from the East. One Nigerien vehicle sped away, per procedure, while the American captain dismounted his truck and led Nigeriens to try to flank the enemy.

He quickly realized, however, that they were facing a large attacking force and ran back to his convoy, radioing his higher command, "Troops in contact."

The team quickly decided to get out of the area.

"The call was then made to break contact and get out of the kill zone" with everyone getting in their vehicles and radioing the team leader as they moved out, a family member recounted from the briefings. "Jeremiah gave a thumbs up" that he understood, the AfriCom investigators repeatedly informed the families.

But the vehicles were soon fatefully separated.

A red smoke grenade was deployed to conceal their movement -- but it also obscured the fact that the third vehicle fell far behind the team leader's vehicles as they sped away, with Wright at the wheel and Johnson and Black walking alongside to use it as cover while firing back.

"The enemy swarmed from the North and East and surrounded them on three sides of the vehicle,” a family member told ABC News. “At that point, they were screwed.”

A heavily edited version of Johnson's captured helmet cam video released online by the terror group shows Black shot dead on the ground and Johnson and Wright sprinting away through the scrub brush, firing their M4A1 rifles, before Johnson falls to the ground. Moments later he is shot repeatedly point-blank by ISIS fighters visible in the frame.

PHOTO: Members of the army honor guard fold the flag above the casket of US Army Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service on October 21, 2017 in Hollywood, Florida. Johnson and three other US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger on October 4.Gaston de Cardenas/AFP/Getty Images
Members of the army honor guard fold the flag above the casket of US Army Sgt. La David Johnson during his burial service on October 21, 2017 in Hollywood, Florida. Johnson and three other US soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger on October 4.more +
The team leader soon realized he did not have accountability of the third vehicle, which was no longer following his column.

"They were seven football fields away when they realized they weren't with them, we were told," said one parent.

They assumed the third SUV was taken out by mortar rounds, and they didn't immediately choose to ascertain their fate, a U.S. intelligence source told ABC News last fall. But four of the Green Berets in pairs attempted to run back toward Johnson, Wright and Black and were soon pinned down by enemy fire, getting no closer than 200 yards from their fallen comrades.

The team leader eventually moved his vehicle toward the other Green Berets fighting it out, assuming that Sgt. La David Johnson, a vehicle mechanic, was going to follow by driving the lead vehicle with Nigerien troops. He did not, according to the briefings given to the families.

"They saw La David fighting heroically ... but then lost sight of him," said one of those who attended the AfriCom briefings.

It was the second time the team leader lost accountability of some of his soldiers, family members said, based on the briefing and accounts they’ve heard from survivors.

The families told ABC News that after picking up six Nigerien and American commandos, the team leader's vehicle got stuck in mud on the edge of a swamp. With even more mortar rounds, RPGs and machine gun volleys directed at them, they ran from the SUV on foot. By then both the team leader and driver had been wounded and the team had been physically divided by suppressive fire into smaller groups by as many as 100 insurgents using small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

At 12:55 p.m. they hunkered down on the edge of the swamp, out of ammunition, and prepared themselves for imminent death, concluding that "no one was coming" to their aid, the families and other sources said. "Broken Arrow" was called on the radio -- a signal occasionally used in combat in Afghanistan since 2001 but a rare declaration of total defeat by a team of elite special operators. They destroyed their communications equipment lest it fall into enemy hands.

The captain only had accountability of a handful of his American and Nigerien troops by then, according to family members and other ABC News sources briefed on the gunfight.

PHOTO: Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefs the media on the recent military operations in Niger, at the Pentagon on October 23, 2017. Four U.S. Army Special Forces members were killed on Oct. 4 in Niger by militants.Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefs the media on the recent military operations in Niger, at the Pentagon on October 23, 2017. Four U.S. Army Special Forces members were killed on Oct. 4 in Niger by militants.more +
At 1:11 p.m., almost three hours into the gunfight, the refueled drone arrived on station over Tongo Tongo, but by then the fight was all but over, the AfriCom briefers told the families, contrary to a public statement by Gen. Dunford on Oct. 23, who said a drone was overhead "within minutes" of the team calling for help and was "right over the scene of the troops in contact."

Twenty-three minutes after calling "Broken Arrow," French Mirage fighter jets made the first of two flyovers, but did not drop ordnance on the enemy because they could not tell friend from foe, the families were informed, though it is unclear why.

A half-hour later they made two more passes over the village but dropped no bombs. The drone video showed the attackers walking away from Tongo Tongo in no particular hurry.

"Why the f--- didn't we follow them with the drone and go kill them?" one relative said after watching it.

Cheffou's men are believed to be responsible for the Tongo Tongo ambush, but he has not been apprehended or killed.

Family members who spoke to ABC News said they do not feel they have all the answers but now understand that command and control of the team had been compromised repeatedly.

"The unit got separated and that's how all four of them ended up dying," one said.

"We just want to know exactly what happened to them,” said another parent. “There was a lot of confusion."

ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Ian Pannell, Michael DelMoro and Elizabeth McLaughlin contributed to this report
https://abcnews.go.com/International/us ... d=54909240

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

Senators riled after closed-door briefing on Niger investigation
BY REBECCA KHEEL - 05/08/18 01:52 PM EDT
0

Senators riled after closed-door briefing on Niger investigation
© Getty Images
Senators emerged from a closed-door briefing Tuesday on the investigation into the ambush in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers questioning the broader mission there, including whether the Pentagon has concealed from Congress the true nature of its operations in Africa.

“That was a very explosive briefing,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters. “I have deep questions on whether the military is following instructions and limitations that Congress has laid down about the mission of these troops in Africa, and I’ve had those questions, and I think this hearing raised a lot more in a pretty explosive way.”


Calling the idea that the troops were on a train-and-equip mission a “fig leaf,” Kaine added that the briefing “raises questions about why people are hiding from us what they’re doing.”

Asked directly if he thinks the military was hiding from Congress what it was doing, Kaine said simply, “Yeah.”

The comments came after the Senate Armed Services Committee received a briefing from Gen. Thomas Thomas Waldhauser, commander of U.S. Africa Command; Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, who led the investigation into the ambush; Robert Karem, assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs; and Owen West, assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

In January, a team of about a dozen U.S. soldiers was ambushed near the Nigerien village of Tongo Tongo by a local affiliate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The United States has about 800 troops in Niger, with about 6,000 across Africa.

Questions have swirled since the attack about what their mission was, whether they had the proper authorities to carry out that mission and whether they were given the proper resources to protect themselves.

Africa Command (Africom) wrapped up its investigation in March, and Defense Secretary James Mattis gave his approval last month.

The families of the soldiers killed have been briefed, and now Congress is getting briefings. The Pentagon has said it will brief the press after Congress.

Still, details of the investigation have leaked, including that the mission was intended to kill or capture the leader of the ISIS affiliate.

Senators on Tuesday would not discuss details specific to the Niger ambush, though one appeared to confirm it was a kill-or-capture mission.

“If we’re putting our highest value trained soldiers on capture and kill missions, they should be individuals who threaten the country,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said the briefing showed “clearly some things, in terms of their concept of operation, they made mistakes.”

Sullivan said the briefing left him questioning whether the U.S. presence in Africa needs to be drawn down, especially given the administration’s stated National Defense Strategy of moving from counterterrorism to so-called great power competition.

“Do we need to look at the appropriate lay down of those forces globally,” he said. “I mean, how many drones do we have in Africa versus the Korean peninsula? How many intel? So there’s a big question here, in my view. To me, I think this should be an opportunity to look at broader strategic issues, not just the tactical operational aspects of what happened, how we lost soldiers.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), though, came away from the briefing with the opposite takeaway. Inhofe previously asked the Army to send a special brigade of about 500 soldiers to Africa and said Tuesday the briefing, particularly a 21-minute video that was shown, reinforced his position on the need for that.

“This is a tragedy, and this may end up achieving that,” he said. “It shows, you can surmise, that we need to have more activity there.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) indicated the briefing raised questions about whether Congress is giving Africa Command enough assets.

“I think it calls into question the strategy with Africom, in terms of not having — we are authorizing, but we are not necessarily setting up and providing them a specific series of assets, where they have to borrow the assets,” he said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said the briefing “raises a lot of questions about future operations.” Asked further if the military is changing anything as a result, Shaheen replied, “Well, they say they are.”
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/38672 ... estigation

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malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

Niger/Mali -Terrorisme : le Niger nie toute collaboration avec des milices touarègues dans la zone frontalière du Mali
2018/05/08 – Le ministre nigérien en charge de l’Intérieur et de la Sécurité, Mohamed Bazoum, a nié lundi toute collaboration de son pays, sur sa partie frontalière du Mali, avec des milices touarègues maliennes accusées d’exactions sur la communauté peule.
Selon le président du conseil des éleveurs peuls du Niger, Aboubakar Diallo, intervenant lundi sur une radio étrangère, des milices d’autodéfense touarègues du Mali, notamment le Mouvement pour le salut de l’Azawad (MSA) et le « Gatia », qui collaborent avec les autorités maliennes dans la lutte contre le terrorisme, font souvent des incursions en territoire nigérien pour des exactions sur les populations peules, avec la complicité des autorités nigériennes.
Il a affirmé que le dernier cas d’exactions remonte au samedi dernier, et a dénoncé la « coopération entre les autorités de Niamey, la force Barkhane et ces milices, sous couvert de traquer, selon eux, le groupe Etat islamique ».
Le ministre Bazoum a réfuté cette accusation, précisant que « ces milices maliennes ne représentent pas une armée officielle et Niamey ne peut être tenu pour responsable des actions de groupes communautaires ».
De son côté, le responsable du MSA, Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, nie toute incursion punitive en territoire nigérien.
Le Niger et le Mali partagent une frontière longue de plus de 800 km avec de part et d’autre les mêmes populations (Touarègues, Peules, Zarma-Songhaï). Des dizaines de civils ont été tués, ces dernières semaines, appartenant essentiellement aux communautés touarègues et peules, dans des violences dont certaines opinions accusent les groupes armés du MSA et du Gatia d’être les responsables.
De même, cette partie nord du Mali abrite depuis près de six ans plusieurs groupes terroristes proches d’Al-Qaïda au Maghreb islamique (Aqmi), d’Ansar Dine et d’autres mouvements islamistes, ainsi que des narcotrafiquants qui mènent des attaques meurtrières de part et d’autre de la frontière commune des deux pays.
Pour mettre fin à l’insécurité dans le nord du Mali et recouvrer l’intégrité territoriale du pays, en plus de la force française Barkhane, intervient depuis janvier 2012 dans la zone la Mission intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA), à laquelle participe le Niger, dès le début de la crise malienne, à travers un contingent de 850 soldats.

Source: Xinhua/Photo: Mohamed Bazoum, ministre de l’Intérieur et de la Sécurité nigérien (IMAGE AFP)

https://httpsahel-elite.com/2018/05/08/ ... e-du-mali/

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
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Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

misleading mission plan, say officials
The soldiers who were ambushed in Niger had set out to catch or kill the leader of an ISIS affiliate, officials say.

WASHINGTON — The four U.S. soldiers killed in Niger last October were trying to capture or kill a senior ISIS terrorist, but the two officers in charge of their 12-man unit misled their higher-ups by reporting they were going on a far less risky mission, according to two U.S. officials and a congressional official familiar with the classified investigation of the deadly ambush.

The three officials say that the investigation, which will be briefed to Congress this week, found that both men believed they had the authority to carry out a capture or kill mission against a high-value target even if they had filed paperwork for a less risky operation — because other officers in the area had previously bypassed the same basic military procedures.

The 12-man Special Operations Task Force left Niamey, the capital of Niger, on Oct. 3, 2017, intending to track down Doundou Chefou, code name Naylor Road, leader of an ISIS affiliate called the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. Accompanied by 30 Nigerien troops, the U.S. team headed for an area near the Mali border.

Chefou is believed to be the architect behind the October 2016 kidnapping of Jeffery Woodke, a 57-year-old American aid worker. Woodke was kidnapped from his home in Niger by armed men and taken to Mali.

Before leaving Niamey, the officials say, the two Army captains leading the 12-man team, one in charge of the team on the ground and the other a team director based in Oaullum, Niger, filed a mission plan for "key leader engagement" and reconnaissance — meaning they said the team was just going to meet with local leaders and gather information.


But the three officials told NBC News that interviews conducted during the Pentagon's investigation revealed the two captains had intentionally filed an incorrect mission plan. Despite what the two men filed, the mission was always intended to be a capture or kill operation against Chefou.

The misleading "key leader engagement" mission was approved and the team set out from Niamey. The assessment by U.S. military leaders on the ground was that contact with the enemy was unlikely, according to an October briefing by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford. But that assessment was based on the belief the team would be conducting a reconnaissance mission, not the mission the team was actually pursuing — trying to capture or kill a terrorist.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Sheryll Klinkel said she could not comment on the investigation before it is released publicly.

THE AMBUSH
Three U.S. defense officials familiar with the investigation told NBC News what happened after the 12-man team left Niamey on its mission.

According to the three officials, while the team was out in the field superior officers asked it to switch from its official "key leader engagement" mission to a new mission. The superior officers directed the men to support a "U.S. government team" that was traveling into the area to pursue Chefou. (The officials did not specify the make-up of this other team.)

In other words, the 12-man team was being asked to do something very similar to what it was already trying to do — find Chefou and capture or kill him. But where previously the men had been the self-appointed "primary team" secretly chasing the ISIS target, say the officials, now they would be the secondary force supporting the team that had actually been ordered to find him.

Within hours of this official change of mission, however, the "U.S. government team" that was coming to the area to lead the pursuit of Chefou was delayed due to weather.

The 12-man U.S. team and their 30 Nigerien counterparts then called off their revamped mission and began to head back to base in Niamey.

The Nigeriens were low on food and water and stopped in the village of Tongo Tongo for supplies. The Americans took the opportunity to meet with local elders — a "key leader engagement" of the type described in their original, incorrect paperwork.

Image: Dustin WrightA carry team of soldiers from the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), carry the transfer case during a casualty return for Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware on Oct. 5, 2017.Pfc. Lane Hiser / U.S. Army via AP file
The Americans and the Nigerien soldiers left Tongo Tongo to continue their journey back to Niamey. About 100 meters after leaving the village, however, they were ambushed.

The attack was small at first, with just a few shots. But the Americans were so caught off-guard that not all had their protective gear on when it began.

The Americans returned fire and fought back, even advancing towards the incoming fire — unwittingly moving straight into the kill zone.

When they reached the kill zone, the strength of the enemy force became clear. More than 50 militants overwhelmed them with firepower.

The ISIS fighters had drawn the Americans into a well-prepared ambush, said the officials. The militants had small arms, rockets, machine guns, and technical vehicles with mounted machine guns. They hit the Americans and the Nigeriens with sustained and accurate mortar fire and powerful direct fire.

The U.S. soldiers were not equipped for sustained engagement. They were armed with small arms, machine guns, and a single-shot grenade launcher. The team included three American trucks with four passengers in each and at least six Nigerien vehicles.

Sgt. La David Johnson, an Army mechanic from Miami Gardens, Florida, was separated from the group when he and two Nigerien soldiers sought refuge from the attack in some brush. As a truck with a mounted machine gun pursued the men, Johnson ran across a field to find cover. A runner and athlete, he was able to race about one kilometer away before he was struck by 18 bullets. "He went down shooting," said one official familiar with the report.

Johnson's body was missing for nearly two days while U.S., French and Nigerien forces searched the area.

Three other U.S. soldiers, Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, were killed in the firefight. Five Nigerien troops were also killed, and two U.S. soldiers were wounded.

ISIS militants tried and failed to remove some of the bodies from the scene of the attack, according to two U.S. officials. They declined to provide details.

A 6,000-PAGE REPORT
U.S. military officials have already changed certain rules of engagement in Niger since the attack. If U.S. soldiers in the area go out in the field with their Nigerien counterparts, they must have a surveillance drone overhead.

This has already saved lives, according to one U.S. official. In early December, U.S. soldiers out on patrol with the Nigerien military came upon an ISIS training camp. As they neared the camp a radio call from a drone base in Garoua, Cameroon, warned them of a huge concentration of enemy fighters on their flank. The U.S. found out about the enemy presence just before the gunshots started and they were able to return fire and escape without any casualties.

The classified report on the Niger attack compiled by investigators recommends specific changes to training and oversight to ensure soldiers understand procedures, say officials.

The Pentagon report is more than 6,000 pages long and includes interviews with nearly 140 people. The families of the four fallen soldiers each received a briefing on the report the last week of April and first week of May, and leaders from U.S. Africa Command will conduct a series of classified briefings on the report for members of Congress this week.

The leader of the investigation, AFRICOM Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, and the commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, will conduct the briefings.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/l ... an-n871926

Topic author
malikos
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Mulazim Awal (ملازم أول)
Messages : 1488
Inscription : 01 avril 2012, 13:54

Re: Actualité militaire au Niger

Message par malikos »

bullshit...the case is clear. In Arlit the Heli was waiting with a special team to capture or kill.
That was a typical "war on terror" combat operations nothing less...The pentagon tries to deceive people, but the facts are clear. People are able to count 1 plus 1 and make two out of it.
Congress was not correctly informed, and Nigeriens are not souverains in their own country, as planning and the chain of command is US led.
...US do what they want. :fou:
THE ACCOMPANY THEY KEEP: WHAT NIGER TELLS US ABOUT ACCOMPANY MISSIONS, COMBAT, AND OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR
ALICE HUNT FRIEND MAY 11, 2018
SPECIAL SERIES - AGENDA SECDEF
The Department of Defense just released the public report on the ambush in Niger last October that killed four U.S. soldiers — a succinct eight-page summary of the reportedly 6,000-page classified version. If the The Wall Street Journal’s coverage earlier this month was any indication, the public conversation over the next few days will likely extend existing debates about the U.S. military presence in Africa, President Donald Trump’s delegation of authority to combatant commanders, and legal authorities for the use of military force abroad. But I hope the report will spur debate over another, less-often discussed question: Where is the line between so-called “accompany missions” and combat?

It seems like the kind of thing the secretary of defense should be able to answer. On Oct. 19, Secretary of Defense James Mattis responded to press queries about what happened in Niger by stating that “war is war.” He explained: “There’s a reason we have U.S. Army soldiers there… because we carry guns and so it’s a reality, part of the danger that our troops face in these counterterrorist campaigns.” Soldiers with guns conducting campaigns sounds to many people like combat. Yet the next day, U.S. Africa Command released a carefully parsed statement asserting that “The U.S. military does not have an active, direct combat mission in Niger.” Eleven days later, Mattis’ references to war were gone, and he instead told a Senate panel that U.S. forces in Niger were operating “in a train-and-advise role.” Despite the apparent contrast between these statements, they can be and are true simultaneously. And that is a problem the Defense Department should, at long last, address out in the open.

The difficulty lies in our tendency to define contemporary military missions in at least three different contexts, serving at least three purposes: the conceptual, the legal, and the operational. Too often we assume that definitions are common across these contexts, until we are surprised to find they are not.

There are huge disagreements — even in the national security community — about what military activities “really” are. The general ideas we hold about them often do not link up with their legal and operational definitions. And too often we assume those definitions are common across those categories — until we are surprised to find they are not.

What counts as combat to the general public? Most civilians think they know combat when they see it, and they know what the word is describing when they hear it. Merriam-Webster defines combat as “a fight or contest between individuals or groups” and “active fighting in a war.” Meanwhile, the popular and political notions of “assistance” generally do not entertain combat. And while U.S. national security interests are central to both combat and assistance, they coexist in the mind distinctly, if imprecisely.

Yet the Defense Department must act within a legal framework, and precision is a vital element of the law. To an authorizer on Capitol Hill and a lawyer across the river at the Pentagon, security force assistance is one thing, building partner capacity is another, and combat is neither of those things. An authorization to use military force is an expression of intent as well as an approval of the methods for meeting it. These two things — intent and method — are inseparable in a legal sense, but entirely separable in a military context. And yet we tend to think of combat as something that happens intentionally. Opposing forces are armed and shooting at each other for wider socio-political reasons sanctioned by those with the formal power to endorse the activity on behalf of society. Even U.S. Africa Command slips into this usage of the term, implying that “combat” means “looking for a fight.” And until last October, no one, including leaders in the Pentagon, seemed to think that was what the U.S. military was doing in Niger.

What were U.S. personnel doing in Niger? Before the Pentagon dropped the public report, media accounts had demonstrated that public perceptions and legal categories do not map neatly onto what happened. Among other things, last October’s ill-fated operation that passed through the village of Tongo Tongo was initially thought to be an accompany mission — that was what Gen. Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained at his press conference in late October. This claim was consistent with Mattis’ assertion that it was not a combat mission. As Dunford described at the time, “when we’re conducting these kinds of operations which we call ‘train, advise and assist,’ we don’t in the normal course of events accompany those local partnered forces when contact with the enemy is expected.”


But then, how did those soldiers wind up in a combat situation anyway? How did an accompany mission intended to avoid enemy contact evolve into what the Defense Department report refers to as a capture mission? Was it an accident, a case of misjudgment, or even, as at least one member of Congress briefed on the classified report has suggested, a result of deception? It seems possible the Oct. 3 mission was still intended to be conducted like other accompany missions in West Africa. Again, according to Dunford, “we either stay back at what we call the last covered and conceal [sic] position, right – so that’s before enemy contact is made – or we don’t even go on an operation…”

Doctrinally, accompany missions generally fall under the category of foreign internal defense, or FID. This includes a spectrum of activities from low-risk training and equipping to higher-risk operational advising. The joint doctrine for special operations explains that two of the three categories of military-related foreign internal defense do not involve U.S. combat operations — but they do involve “indirect” and “direct” support to partner forces as they conduct their own operations. U.S. rules of engagement vary based on the context, but when it comes to FID, situations tend to reflect that U.S. forces are there to advise the partner rather than engage as combatants themselves. So, accompany missions are not necessarily intended to involve U.S. personnel in lethal contact with the enemy — just as Dunford explained. Thus, mission objectives do not assume the necessity of U.S. use of force.

But, as the cliché goes, the enemy has a vote. And since U.S. forces’ standing rules of engagement permits self-defense under any circumstance (unless otherwise specified), American accompany missions inherently combine hazard with permission to use force if attacked. In such a context, armed engagements are simply a matter of probability. It’s important to note that by the time the ambush started, the unit was on its way back to camp. The engagement with the militants did not happen in the course of conducting a raid; it happened during a movement very much like those Dunford described.

Given the association between the use of military force and war, many analysts focused primarily on the legal frameworks for events in Niger, wondering whether the lethal engagement occurred outside the scope of Defense Department’s authorities. Yet in this case, policymakers appear to have acknowledged the necessity of alerting Congress about the potential for the use of force abroad. Deployments to Niger had been notified for several years by the Obama and Trump administrations consistent with the War Powers Resolution notifications.

Under that law, the president is responsible for consulting with Congress “in every possible instance” prior to “introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.” The law does not fully define what constitutes “hostilities,” but the term has come to be understood as referring to situations in which there is a risk that U.S. troops may need to use force while deployed, including in self-defense. Since 2013, troop deployments to Niger have been included in these regular reports. As Dunford noted in a press conference after the October attack, the U.S. advisor deployment in Niger was intended to help counter terrorist groups, and thus the area where advisors were present is “inherently dangerous.”

Separately from the War Powers Resolution, Congress has enacted provisions in recent National Defense Authorization Acts that require additional reports and information-sharing by the executive branch regarding the use of military force. In its 2018 NDAA Section 1264 report on the legal and policy frameworks for the use of military force, the Trump administration asserted that the secretary of defense’s Title 10 train, advise, and assist authorities, the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the president’s Article II authorities, and the right to self-defense all justified the soldiers’ deployment to Niger. The administration further asserted that the troops’ use of force in response to being attacked was justified both by the principle of self-defense and by the 2001 AUMF. The administration appears to have invoked the latter retroactively, following a finding that the militants who attacked the U.S. troops were ostensibly affiliated with the Islamic State, an organization that two successive administrations have controversially claimed to be covered under the 2001 act.

Despite this retroactive assertion that the use of force in self-defense was also covered by the 2001 AUMF, military and administration officials have largely maintained that the forces’ activities in Niger are focused on assistance. In his above-mentioned appearance before the press on the subject, Dunford invoked the oft-used building partner capacity talking point, stating that, “our soldiers are operating in Niger to build the capacity of local forces to defeat violent extremism in West Africa.” This argument suggests that, whatever the permutations of that particular day, the American servicemembers ambushed in Tongo Tongo were generally conducting the types of missions Mattis referenced: training, advising, assisting, and accompanying partner forces.

Often, a trigger for notifying a deployment under the War Powers Resolution is if the unit will be “combat equipped”, which suggests U.S. forces may be involved in hostilities. Yet policymakers’ careful avoidance of combat in Niger — part of the low profile, light footprint Defense Department approach across the African continent — mean U.S. forces are being sent into situations where there is no intended engagement with opposing force. And in places like Niger, there may be an additional expectation that the capabilities of that opposing force are inferior to the training and discipline of U.S. special operations forces. Ninety-nine times out of 100, the combination of expectations and equipping may well be equal to any encounter with hostile entities. It’s the 100th time, though, where the low profile, light footprint, lightly armed accompany mission is under-matched to its circumstances. And it’s not just Niger. That may be what happened in Somalia almost a year ago when a Navy SEAL was killed in an ambush as his unit accompanied local forces on a raid.

What is important here is not the design of specific missions, but the way accompanying partner forces have been attached to notions of assistance rather than joint operations. If assistance is the primary activity being undertaken in a country, then, as we saw in Niger, U.S. combat-related resources are not readily on hand. Moreover, if U.S. policy is to maintain a light footprint, and therefore limit the number of military assets in the region, that limits the missions to those we consider non-combat. We’re doing assistance, so we don’t need assets. Or: we don’t want to posture assets in the region, so let’s limit ourselves to assistance. Although the French military operation in the Sahel had apparently been alerted to a previously planned raid, the soldiers on the ground could not communicate with the French quick-reaction force directly, and no supplemental American assets were anywhere close by. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the commander of U.S Africa Command, in fact, had been lamenting the gaps in U.S. medical evacuation capacity in Africa even before the ambush.

Prioritizing combat-related capabilities for theaters where combat is expected makes sense, especially when the choice is between places like Afghanistan and benign environments where the assistance activity does not mean on the job operational training. When U.S. forces are involved in missions alongside partner forces, even if the Americans are not the ones taking offensive action, they are being exposed to it. The doctrine on foreign internal defense itself traffics in the ambiguities of operational assistance. That third category of military-related foreign internal defense? U.S. combat operations. But, according to the doctrine, those operations mean that “U.S. forces either integrate with or operate in the place of HN [host nation] forces.” It’s combat in the name of assisting a partner as a way to prevent their domestic threats from metastasizing into international problems. It’s assistance. But it’s combat. Sometimes.

Little wonder Mattis had two answers for what U.S. forces are doing in Niger. Even if we can identify where the line between support to combat and involvement in combat is, how much control does anyone really have over crossing it? It seems like command decisions can be made better than they were in this instance. But even the professionalism of U.S. forces cannot eliminate their basic vulnerability when accompanying partners into areas with hostile groups whose own tolerance for risk is high. Given what we know today, it appears that under the right circumstances an accompany mission can quickly become indistinguishable from combat, even if the legal and doctrinal intent was to avoid enemy engagement.

The secretary thus has a policy decision to make. Is the accompany model the best option for defending national interests in places like Niger? If so, then the secretary will need to consider doing two things: changing our defense posture and equipping to provide more resources to forces in West Africa and elsewhere and/or determining that all accompany missions are more combat-related than assistance-related and are appropriate only in so-called areas of active hostilities. If neither approach is appealing, the logical choice is to scale back the advise-accompany mission set in places where close air support, medical evacuation, and other resources are not readily accessible.

The commander of special operations in Africa, Maj. Gen. Mark Hicks, has already made the decision to reduce the number of accompany operations, at least temporarily. But the fine line between accompany missions and combat is not only relevant in Africa. As the Army moves forward with the security force assistance brigades and the United States continues to prosecute the struggle against terrorism with combat advisers, it’s worth asking: Isn’t sending our soldiers out with guns alongside foreign forces running similar risks of combat engagements just as sending our soldiers out with guns is?



Alice Hunt Friend is a senior affiliate at the Center for a New American Security and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and was previously Special Adviser for Strategy, Plans, and Forces and Principal Director for African Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The views expressed here are her own.

Image: U.S. Africa Command
https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/the-a ... -than-war/
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