Vole Forces News Today

French and over 35,000 local partners that are operating there. if you look at the numbers in afghanistan, approximately 11,000 americans on the ground, 300,000 afghans. so what the american people need to do, with a relatively small footprint, we are enabling local forces to deal with these challenges before they become a threat to the american people. and to help them to deal with the challenges so they dont further destabilize their local area or region. >> were there any kia and do you know ...

The homeland and local forces are unable to deal with that threat, the united states forces are going to deal with that threat. but the bias is towards enabling local african partners to conduct operations in africa. >> clarity on the timeline on the meds vac. how long did it take for the casualties were medevaced and how long before the dead americans were returned on the contractor flight? >> okay. what i outlined for you earlier was the evening of -- during the firefight, so this is probably ...

Challenge. i believe that isis will attempt to establish a physical presence outside of iraq and syria now that they have lost their caliphate in raqqah and mosul. theyll attempt to establish. thats why were conducting the kind of operations weve conducted in niger is to ensure local forces have the capability to prevent that from happening. >> we have time for two more questions. >> courtney? >> thank you. does part of the fbi investigation include interviewing the wounded and the soldiers who ...

Yes. were there because isis and al qaeda are operating in that area. thats why our forces are providing advice and assist to vole forces is to help them deal with that particular challenge. with regard to our equipping, our responsiveness and so forth, those will all be questions that well ask ourselves at every level once the investigation is concluded. its important for us to base line what support was requested at what particular time? when did it arrive? was it what they needed? all those a...

In africa are designed to 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 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 reen recent days, we have a difference operation against al qaeda, al shab...

Can to mitigate it. when were conducting these investigations which we call train, advise and assist, we dont normally accompany those local partnered forces when contact with the enemy is expected. so we do one of two things. we either stay back on 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 enem...