Page 3 - Enemy Contact News Today

These kinds of operations which we call train, advise and assist, we dont in the normal course of events accompany those local partner forces when contact with the enemy is expected. so we either -- we do one of two things, we stay back at what we call the last cover and conceal position, right? thats before enemy contact is made or we dont even go on an operation if enemy contact is made. outside of active hostilities, our focus is to enable local forces to be able to conduct operations against...

Support the training, advising and assisting of the local african partners. and we mitigate the risk to u.s. forces with specific guidance that we will only accompany those forces when the prospects of enemy contact is unlikely. there are other areas in africa where we have a different construct. so what i just described to you is the construct that exists in west africa. clearly, and youve seen it in recent days, we have a different type of operation against al qaeda, al shabaab and al qaeda or...

To defend themselves? were they heavily defended or light trucks or not expecting much resistance? >> ill answer the second part because i know. what happens subsequently will be the investigation. because the rules in that part of west africa are that we will only accompany our forces when the chances of enemy contact are unlikely. so with that, they were equipped with machine guns, small arms and obviously had the ability with communications capability to reach back and get greater larger supp...

Search for sergeant johnsons body, can you tell us how many u.s. troops took part in the search and describe not just the drone that looked for him but other assets as well? >> i cant. again, thats down to a level of detail that is really going to require an investigation to lay that out. >> how many u.s. troops took part in the search. >> i cant tell you how many were involved in that mission. i dont know what each of those troops were doing at a given time once contact was made. anything i wil...

Officials at really any questions on this ambush and whether there were failures, et cetera, a very different position here from the chairman of the joint chiefs. he came out and said every one of these questions from the media and others is legitimate and im going to stand here, im going to take them and answer the ones i can. i suppose maybe not the surprising thing at this point, but perhaps the frustrating thing is that many of those questions for him even remain unanswered. we did learn tha...

>> its not my assessment theyre taking too many risks. lets keep in mind, although i talked about enemy contact being unlikely on this particular mission, the reason why were in west africa is because the area of concentration. the reason our special operations forces are operating in libya is because theres a threat of isis attacks from libya. the reason theyre in east africa is because theres an al qaeda and a smaller isis presence there. so to the extent theyre taking risk, we have sent them ...

Support. when they requested support, it took the french aircraft, the french were ready to go in 30 minutes and it took them 30 minutes -- approximately 30 minutes to get on the scene. so from that, i think its a fair conclusion to say that about two hours after the initial contact was made, the initial french mirages arrived overhead. when they didnt ask for support for that first hour, my judgment would be that that unit thought they could handle the situation without additional support. and ...

When they requested support, it took the french aircraft, the french were ready to go in 30 minutes, and then it took them 30 minutes -- approximately 30 minutes to get on the scene. so from that, i think its a fair conclusion to say that about two hours after the initial contact was made, the initial french aircraft arrived overhead. but its important to note when they didnt ask for support for that first hour, my judgement would be that that unit thought they could handle the situation without...

Which we call train, advise and assist, we dont accompany those local partnered forces when contact with the enemy is expected. we do one of two things. we stay back in what we call the last cover and conceal position. thats before enemy contact is made. or we dont even go on an operation if enemy contact is made. outside of active hostilities, our focus is to enable local forces to be able to conduct operations against the enemy. yes. >> you have to say that the war in isis shifting right now t...

Dropped any bombs. general dunford said u.s. forces in niger are not allowed to accompany local forces if they expect enemy contact and they did not expect resistance on this patrol. martha? >> martha: thank you very much. here with more lieutenant michael waltz former green beret commander who served in niger and helped train i the army there. he is also a fox news contributor. thanks as always for being here tonight. >> thanks, martha. >> martha: you listened to all of in this afternoon. whats...