Page 23 - Operating Base News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Tonight, the u.s. military is offering new details on the ambush in niger that left four american soldiers dead. know many basic questions remain unanswered. >> u.s. forces accompanied that niger unit on a reconnaissance mission to gather information. assessment by our leaders on the ground at that time was that contact with the enemy was unlikely. mid-morning on october 4th, the patrol began to take fire as they were returning to their operating base. >> reporter: according to general dunford, troops first requested air support a full hour after initial contact with the enemy. approximately 5...

Operating base. approximately one hour after taking fire, the team requested support. and within minutes, a remoetsly piloted aircraft arrived overhead. within an hour, french jets arrived on station. and then later that afternoon, french attack helicopters arrived on station in a nigerian quick reaction force arrived in the area where our troops were in contact with the enemy. during the firefight, two u.s. soldiers were wounded and evacuated by french air and that was consistent with the casualty evacuation plan that was in place for this particular operation. three u.s. soldiers who were ki...

On the 3rd of october, 12 members of the u.s. special operations task force accompanied 30 nigerian forces on a simple reconnaissance mission from the capital city to a village approximately 85 kilometers to the north was the location of that village. on the fourth of october, u.s. and nigerian forces began moving back south. en route to their operating base, the patrol came under attack from approximately 50 enemy, using small arms fire, rocked propelled grenades and tech vehicles. what i want to do now is i want to walk through for you the timeline that we have and kind of what i would categ...

Coming out and sharing information. this is what i'm trying to do to clear up today. i think you were told in the past that the french were there in 30 minutes. they responded within 30 minutes and they were overhead of this unit within 30 minutes. that's where the 30 minutes came from and i'm making that clarification. >> operational clarification. you said they were ambushed when they were coming back to your outpost. previously we were told they were ambushed when they were leaving the village. is there a discrepancy there? >> no, there is not a discrepancy. when i described it, they're lea...

Numbers and meters from the village. the initial report is that the contact made with ten my is outside the village, south of the village as they headed back to their operating base. >> i want to be clear. you said they did not call for support until 1 hour after first contact. that's putting pressure on those team members. can you say without a shadow of a doubt within that hour they did not call out for support? >> look, what i can tell you the timeline that we have is the first indicator that the unit called for external support was one hour later. now, i will tell you, the information i'm ...