Page 35 - Drone Base News Today

Members of the u.s. military, but part of what this story has done is awaken some civilians to just how far flung these places are. >> look, in niger there are 800 u.s. forces, roughly. most of them are building a new drone base. so, you look at what the intelligence failure was here, maybe not having good isr intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. that stems in part because there is only about a 20%, 30% coverage of the continent of africa. this is from the general in that area. hes been...

Live from johannesburg. david, we know u.s. forces have been in africa for some time. what can you tell us about the terror threat in africa. and more importantly, what are u.s. forces doing there? >> well, martin, theres a substantial and desperate territory in that part of africa, in the west, now, its mostly groups that are loosely created with isis and al qaeda. in recent years theyve been hitting soft targets and military targets. its worth noting that there have been several attacks by mil...

Throughout the region. >> courtney, put this in the context of what the general just la laid out for us here. number of operations. the hot spots in africa that were watching north. if you can do that for us. >> yeah, hes right. theres been expansion of the u.s. military presence and mission in that area. theres been just even recently an expansion in the late chad bas basin. theres even a u.s. military presence. the u.s. opened a new drone base in niger recently. they have dedicated some more a...

Covers the size of a continental u.s., much of the u.s. involvement is around intelligent gathering new drone base. that helps the regional government and u.s. allies trying and track down eliminate the threat of the terror threat coming from threats thats loosely affiliated with al-qaida and syria. with guns and ideology spreading throughout the region that is the u.s. and others need to keep involve in the fight against tearing that part of africa so it does not get out of control. >> thank yo...

On thursday we learned that the fbi has now joined the pentagons investigation into why what was supposed to be a routine patrol ended in an ambush that killed four american soldiers in niger. including why it took nearly 48 hours to recover the body of sergeant la david johnson. joining me now is nbc news pentagon correspondent hans nichols. hans, lets pull back for a moment for those bewildered by the fact we have more than 600 troops in niger at all. why were they there? what were they doing?...

Personally hurt by mccain suggesting hoe might have to resort to subpoenas. this is escalating fast. >> and hans, we did some checking. it looks like we have americans, american military in 176 places around the world. >> yeah. >> excluding humanitarian missions and in some postings where theres just one or two members of the u.s. military. but part of what this story has done is awakened some civilians to just how far flung these places are. >> look, in niger, there are 800 u.s. forces, roughly...

Missions and in some postings where theres just one or two members of the u.s. military. but part of what this story has done is aquake end some civilians to just how far flung these places are. >> in niger there are 800 u.s. forces roughly. most of them are building a new drone base. so you look at what the sbelts failure was here. maybe want having good isr. that stems in part because theres only about a 20 or 30% coverage. he has been complaining about this for some time. so what is his goal?...

What weve done is put assistance forces, special forces odas, a drone base in niger has been there for some time, a $100 million expansion of a base, and we have been assisting these nations to stop the formulation of al qaeda in the islamic maghreb and some of these fledgling groups that are splintering off from boko haram and isis coming out of libya. these missions have been going on for some time. what youve usually seen was attacks on hotels and terrorist attacks with u.s. forces generally ...

For years called flint lock. the french have been carrying out combat operations as part of "operation burkani." what weve done is put assistance forces, special forces odas, a drone base in niger has been there for some time, a $100 million expansion of a base, and we have been assisting these nations to stop the formulation of al qaeda in the islamic maghreb and some of these fledgling groups that are splintering off from boko haram and isis coming out of libya. these missions have been going ...

Information is supposed to be. and these guys walked into this ambush without knowing that this isis group is there. malcolm is exactly right. this may very well be a turning point in our commitment to africa. >> malcolm, last comment? >> yeah. you know, we have a base to the northeast of that about 150 kilometers which is a very large base. its a u.s. drone base which carries out collections operations in that trans-saddle region between the town, the libyan border, and west of mali. it appears...