quote:

Originally posted by oldfireguy:
Man this is so fucked up. One of the soldiers killed is the son of a close friend of ours. I was texting with her when she got the news. He leaves behind a wife and kids. He was an SF medic and that was his dream. Horrible news.

quote:

Originally posted by oldfireguy:
Man this is so fucked up. One of the soldiers killed is the son of a close friend of ours. I was texting with her when she got the news. He leaves behind a wife and kids. He was an SF medic and that was his dream. Horrible news.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
There's quite a bit of activity going on in that part of the world.

quote:

So fierce was the attack that the Green Beret team was split into two and separated from one another amidst the ambush. One group of six split from the main assault and from what was explained to SOFREP, began moving themselves out of the kill box to possibly gain a more advantageous flanking position on the enemy in order to engage them. The other portion of the team was trapped inside the ambush and would fight their aggressors until the end, resulting in three U.S. Special Forces soldiers dead with two more wounded and reportedly eight Nigeriens dead or injured.

The other split element never linked back up with the other Americans after the French helicoptered in troops to assist the Green Berets and were considered missing in action after attempting to raise them over the radio. Five of the soldiers were found and accounted for, all except one, the young soldier who DoD has just announced dead today. He had been missing in action for 48 hours and was a mechanic assigned the the Green Beret team who was also driving one of the vehicles reportedly coming back from a joint direct action raid.

quote:

Johnson's group was attacked near the Niger-Mali border by up to 50 fighters thought to be affiliated with ISIS, a US official said.
The 12-member US team was leaving a meeting in unarmored pick-up trucks when they began taking fire from small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, according to a US defense official.

With window glass exploding all around them, the service members, including multiple Army Special Forces soldiers, exited the vehicles, ran for cover, and began returning fire, killing some of the attacking militants.

....

Elite US special operations forces troops were flown in from the continental US to aid in the recovery effort. US Navy SEALs were deployed to a US military base in Sigonella, Sicily, in anticipation of a possible rescue attempt, but never went into Niger.

"We had everything, jets, rotary wings, (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), various platforms, human intelligence, signals intelligence, you name it," US Army Col. Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for Africa Command told reporters at the Pentagon Friday via a phone call. "There was a full-court press by all of (the Department of Defense), the Nigerien government, the Department of State and the French to help us recover our lost one."

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
My deepest sympathies to the families of these brave men.

And may we rain hell down on the bastards who did this.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
France doesn’t get a lot of credit but they have a SOF command that is kick ass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...ions_Command_(France)


Great Movie on them is Forces Speciales very well done.