Rebels recover vehicle of US Special Forces ambushed in Niger
SUMMARY
A Tuareg rebel leader said March 13, 2018, that members of his group have recovered an American vehicle that was stolen in the ambush in Niger in which four U.S. forces were killed in October 2017.
The vehicle taken during the attack in Tongo Tongo, Niger was found on the Malian side of the border in the desert, said Fahad Ag Al Mahmoud, secretary-general of the rebel group known by its French acronym, GATIA.
Read more: This timeline shows how the Niger operation went down
"Our men are in the middle of digging out the vehicle to get it back in working order," he said.
He said it was not immediately possible to send a photo to confirm they had retrieved the vehicle, because of the lack of internet in the remote border area.
A coalition of armed Tuareg rebels has been operating against jihadist groups active in the area between Mali and Niger for several weeks.
Four U.S. forces and four Nigerien troops were killed Oct. 4, 2017, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) north of Niamey, Niger's capital, when they were attacked by as many as 100 Islamic State-linked extremists traveling by vehicle and carrying small arms and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Two other American soldiers and eight Nigerien forces were wounded.
More: This is the general demanding answers for the families of the soldiers who died in Niger
A U.S. military investigation into the Niger attack concluded that the team didn't get required senior command approval for a risky mission to capture a high-level Islamic State militant, though it did not point to that failure as a cause of the deadly ambush, several U.S. officials familiar with the report said.
The investigation found no single point of failure leading to the attack. It also drew no conclusion about whether villagers in Tongo Tongo, where the team stopped for water and supplies, alerted extremists to American forces in the area.
