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The Tongo Tongo ambush or the Niger ambush occurred on 4 October 2017, when armed militants from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) attacked Nigerien and US soldiers outside the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger, while they were returning to base after a stop in the village. During the ambush, four Nigeriens, four US soldiers, and at least 21 ISGS militants were killed, and eight Nigeriens and two US soldiers including the team commander were wounded. In the day preceding the ambush, the Nigerien and US soldiers conducted a mission attempting to locate and capture or kill Doundou Chefou, a commander in the ISGS. The ambush sparked political debate over the presence of US forces in Africa and brought attention to previously under-reported US military activities in the region. The ambush also prompted congressional inquiries, and an investigation by the US Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD inquiry, completed in 2018, found that the 11-member US special forces team was not prepared for the mission, and identified other flaws in planning. The ambush remains the largest loss of American lives in combat in Africa since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. Background In January 2013, a senior Nigerien official told Reuters that Bisa Williams, the then-United States Ambassador to Niger, requested permission to establish a drone base in a meeting with Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou. On 5 February, officials from both Niger and the United States said that the two countries signed a status of forces agreement that allowed the deployment of unarmed surveillance drones. In that month, US President Barack Obama sent 150 military personnel to Niger to set up a surveillance drone operation that would aid France in its counterterrorism efforts in the Northern Mali conflict. In October 2015, Niger and the US signed a military agreement committing the two countries "to work together in the fight against terrorism". US Army Special Forces personnel (commonly referred to as Green Berets) have deployed on numerous occasions to train personnel of the Niger Armed Forces (FAN) to assist in the fight against terrorists from neighboring countries. In October 2017, there were about 800 US military personnel in Niger, most of whom were working to build a second drone base for US and French aircraft in Agadez. The expectations were that construction of the base would be completed in 2018, which would allow the US to conduct surveillance operations with the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper to monitor ISIL insurgents flowing south and other extremists flowing north from the Sahel region. In 2015, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara was established by Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, who was a spokesperson and senior leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In August 2013, MUJAO merged with al-Mourabitoun, which swore allegiance to al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri. In May 2015, Sahrawi spoke on the behalf of al-Mourabitoun and had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However, the declaration was not recognized by the group's leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and the al-Qaeda loyalists, creating a split in the group. According to the United States Department of Defense, ISIL leaders in Syria had acknowledged Sahrawi's allegiance through their Amaq News Agency but ISGS "has not been formally recognized as an official branch of ISIL". The ISGS's first confirmed terror attack occurred on 2 September 2016 when fighters targeted a customs post in Markoye, Burkina Faso, an attack that left a border agent and a civilian dead. The ISGS had since been targeting pro-government militias that support the French and United Nations forces in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 46 attacks occurred since early 2016 in the Tahoua and Tillabéri regions of Niger. OCHA also said that seven districts in the two regions had been under a state of emergency since March 2017, and the government renewed the measure for an additional three months on 18 September. The FAN had launched a military operation to reestablish security in Tillabéri in June 2017. Pre-ambush First mission On 2 October 2017, a US special forces (SOF) team from 3rd Special Forces Group based in Quallam received intelligence that placed a high value ISGS sub-commander in their area of responsibility. Following this intelligence, the team submitted a mission plan for the vicinity of Tiloa the next day. The plan the team submitted did not accurately describe the mission's intention, describing it as civil/military reconnaissance instead of the actual purpose which was to locate and capture or if necessary kill the ISGS sub-commander. The mission plan was assessed and approved by the AOB Niger and SOCCE commanders and on 3 October at 5:59 am (local time), the team of 11 personnel consisting of eight US Special Forces operators, two support, and an intelligence contractor accompanying 35 Nigerien personnel from the Security and Intelligence Battalion (Bataillon Sécurité et de Renseignement or BSR) and the 433rd Special Interdiction unit, departed toward the vicinity of Tiloa in an eight vehicle convoy. The Americans traveled in two technicals and an unarmored Toyota Land Cruiser while the Nigeriens traveled in five vehicles, one of which had been provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had specialized surveillance equipment on board. Second mission In Tiloa, the team failed to locate the ISGS commander and began their return to base. More than halfway back to base, the team received time sensitive intelligence that placed the commander northwest of Tiloa at the Mali border. The approved mission plan originally called for a helicopter team as the primary force with the Quallam team serving as a quick reaction force, however bad weather forced the helicopter team to cancel forcing team Quallam to continue on their own. Through the night of the 4th, the team made their movement north and reached the objective officials referred to as "objective north" at sunrise. As the team searched they discovered enemy rations, uniforms and a motorcycle all of which were destroyed by partner Nigerien soldiers. After completion of the second mission the team was ordered to return to base, before returning the team commander ordered an overhead ISR asset to continue monitoring the area in order to gather intelligence on possibly enemy routes leading into Mali, in turn leaving the team unwatched as they departed toward Tongo Tongo at 8:30 am (local time). Stop at Tongo Tongo In a video recorded before the ambush, young men can be seen on motorbikes armed with rifles and machine guns, repeating Islamist slogans, and discussing what they would do in the event they captured soldiers, with one of them saying that they would de.... Discover the Bryan Cohen Jeremiah Jones popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Bryan Cohen Jeremiah Jones books.