WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials Thursday said the investigation into the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Niger “will not be rushed because we have to be right” and offered few specifics beyond the fact that the unit was “providing advise and assist missions” to Nigerian counterterrorism forces when the soldiers came under attack.
The four soldiers were killed in an Oct. 4 attack.
“We do know that the team came under fire and French…aircraft arrived to assist. The wounded were airlifted out by the French and the service members killed in action were evacuated by contract air,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said.
Neither White nor Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the Pentagon’s joint staff director, would comment on the specific timeline surrounding the event or any future operations that may occur in response to the attack.
When asked about the details surrounding the delay in finding one of the soldiers, Sgt. La David Johnson, White said, “We don’t leave anyone behind…he was separated.”
McKenzie said that either U.S., French or Nigerien forces were on the ground until the soldier was found.
“It’s a battlefield…so, it’s not, perhaps, as clear as it might appear from the bright lights of this briefing room,” McKenzie said. “A lot of men and a lot of women searched very hard to find him.”
McKenzie said that there were 29 partner patrols made in the area in the last six months without making any contact with enemy forces.
“On the battlefield, the enemy gets a vote, the opposition gets a vote” McKenzie said when asked if the incident was due to an intelligence failure. “We’ll investigate this, we’ll have conclusions, and those conclusions will be presented.”
U.S. African Command is leading the investigation.
In an Oct. 12 press conference, McKenzie said that the U.S. has around 1,000 forces distributed across the Chad basin; most of the forces are stationed in Niger. There are around 5,000 French forces in the Mali region, which borders Niger