Page 33 - Drone Base News Today

There to move more to general purpose, general purpose, general serving military folks. think in general when hes talking about the fight against isis and predicted a lot of this, he said that it will be less inspirational isis. its a, quote, diminished brand. but its clear that theres going to be a presence in africa with the 6,000 troops there, most of them are around jabuti. a few hundred scattered about five, six countries. the drone base in niger, a new drone base they are building, that wi...

Hundreds. it is a force that has seen an increase in numbers because the drone base is under construction. one of the reasons they are focusing on niger is because it is critical when it comes to the war on terror especially in the region. these drones that america is flying as yous fly ing uses it to look at targets. you have isis and the growing threat in libya to the north. al qaeda and isis a failiates that have begun emerging. then you have the threat and now in the words of the soldier, am...

He is raising the question of americas approach to the war on terror, specifically what they are trying to accomplish saying he believes that america needed to reevaluate it. he said they were not seeing sufficient or actual real results, wolf. >> are they giving you numbers? we are told there may be as many as 1,000 troops still in niger right now. maybe 6,000 around other parts of africa. a dangerous environment with isis affiliated terror groups ga gaping strength. >> as you know, the militar...

Soldiers were killed. were told this was a routine mission. because several attacks have happened against nigerian soldiers in the past year so its known to be an area where these happen. new details emerging about how u.s. officials have been asking for the capability to arm their drones. they have a big drone base here but they havent been armed. they used to be used in intelligence gathering and reconnaissan reconnaissance. it doesnt mean it would have made a big difference in this because ev...

Ambushed as they left the town, don. >> wow. lets go now to -- youre on the ground there. whats it like? whats the situation on the ground? >> well, its a lot tenser for sure than we were last here about three, four months ago when we did actually visit the u.s. drone base here as well as the one out that is under construction. people when you speak to them here will echo what they were saying to us in the past in that they in and of themselves are very concerned about security and stability in ...

Niger. niger, there are 800 u.s. troops today. now, the bulk of them are here building a drone base near this town. this particular unit, though, was coming out of the capital. this is what happened. they were going up towards the border to look at, they were told, to look for intelligence on a known isis leader operating in this area here. they went to the camp. the leader, as they knew before they went there, was no longer there. they were just gathering intelligence. as they were heading back...

Hello to both of you. im going to start with you. theres still so many questions that we have yet to learn the answers for about this ambush. bring us up-to-date on what happened and how did the soldiers come under attack? >> lets have a look at the setting first. niger here, right in the center of a region with increased jihadi activity all along the borders here. just keep in mind this fact. today there is some 6,000 u.s. troops across africa in 53 different place. just gives you a sense of wh...

Capital they stopped in a village to replenish their supplies and it was as they were leaving there that they came under what was really a sophisticated ambush. there were mortars, heavy machine guns, there were prgs. that takes some time, some planning and its their strong suspicion -- in fact, i spoke to a defense official today who said its highly probable that some villagers here tipped off isis fighters in the region that there was a u.s. presence there and then that allowed them to be ambu...

It tells me were tightening the screws from a military elements of power standpoint on north korea, tells me that things are very tense in that region. we know this. the elements of power, the economic piece and north korea is being squeezed hard economically. you have the information power, the words going back and forth. you have diplomatic power and three military powers. three strike groups, were poised to do something. thats expensive. >> martha: and as well, the president heads to the regi...

More than ten years. in fact, cnn was invited here just recently to look at the drone base. this is not some secret mission working in the shadows. its very much above board and very significant. working out of niger to mitigate the terror threat in neighboring countries, and its seen as a key buffer zone towards stopping these relatively small militant groups from expanding and developing a footprint. >> all right. thank you so much. joining me now to discuss more of this is it congressman sc...