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| Fourth U.S. Soldier Is Found Dead After Ambush in Niger | Fourth U.S. Soldier Is Found Dead After Ambush in Niger |
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| WASHINGTON — A fourth American soldier has been found dead after an ambush in Niger that killed three other United States Army Special Forces and wounded two, American officials said on Friday. | |
| It was not clear whether the American was captured and killed by militants or whether he had been separated during the fighting that erupted on Wednesday. Special Forces troops were ambushed during what was initially called a routine training mission with Nigerien troops by what commanders believe was a heavily armed Qaeda force from neighboring Mali. | It was not clear whether the American was captured and killed by militants or whether he had been separated during the fighting that erupted on Wednesday. Special Forces troops were ambushed during what was initially called a routine training mission with Nigerien troops by what commanders believe was a heavily armed Qaeda force from neighboring Mali. |
| Local residents recovered the soldier’s body near the site of the ambush, about 120 miles north of Niamey, the capital of Niger, where the United States now has about 800 troops based, an American military official said. | |
| In the hours following the attack, when it became clear that the soldier was missing, additional troops from the Joint Special Operations Command were rushing to try to help find him, according to American officials. The Defense Department did not identify the fourth soldier, who was a mechanic, according to two military officials. | |
| But the Pentagon on Friday did identify the three American Special Forces soldiers who military officials had previously said were killed on Wednesday: Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29; Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, and Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39. | |
| The three, all of whom were assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., came from across the nation. Sergeant Wright was a native of rural Georgia, Sergeant Black was from a city near Seattle and Sergeant Johnson listed his hometown as a suburb of Cincinnati. | |
| Now, they are knitted together as the first American troops to die in combat as part of the United States’ broadening counterterrorism mission in Niger, which is in northwest Africa. | |
| After years of missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 3rd Special Forces Group, the unit to which the men were assigned, announced that it was returning its focus to Africa in 2015. The decision came as the United States increasingly relies on small groups of Special Forces soldiers who, in turn, bore a disproportionate brunt of casualties. This year, the elite forces have accounted for nearly half of all Army combat deaths. | |
| Pentagon officials expressed shock this week at the deaths during what commanders had initially said was a routine reconnaissance mission. The American team leaders told their superiors in seeking approval for the mission that there was a “low risk” of hostile activity in the region close to the border between Niger and Mali. | |
| That assessment has come under question by several military officials because that border region has been recently destabilized by cross-border jihadist attacks on the Nigerien army and refugee camps by fighters from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Qaeda branch in North Africa. In mid-June, the Nigerien army mounted an operation in this same northern Tillaberi region to take on the jihadists. |