The men were not ready or prepared for the mission they found themselves on, according to family members and other unit veterans. Few of the Americans on the team had even trained together, sources said. 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.īut 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. Many officials last fall repeated such inaccuracies to the press and the families about the combat incident, leading to confusion and suspicion. “I knew they had lied about it,” a relative told ABC News. 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.ĭepartment of Defense via EPA/Shutterstock They described a perfect storm of bad decisions and bad luck punctuated with extraordinary heroism and valor. 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. “Their bodies were piled in a truck.”Īll of the family members, who endured grueling day-long briefings by U.S. "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.
Even their boots, wallets and jewelry were stolen. Africa Command investigators over the past week.Ī cellphone video released by the militants in March showed that the three Americans had been stripped down by the enemy after they were killed. "They were going to take the bodies away but they were scared off," said a member of a second family briefed by U.S. Black's body lay on the ground next to the vehicle. He remained missing for almost 36 hours before his remains were found.Īlmost 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. 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. 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. Bryan Black, 35, and an Army support enabler, Staff Sgt. "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." They were abandoned," the parent of one of the American commandos who died told ABC News. "They were left on their own and it was The Alamo. commanders, families of the fallen soldiers and other sources briefed on the military investigation told ABC News. 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.
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