Five soldiers from Niger and three U.S. Army Special Forces troops were killed and two wounded in an ambush on a joint patrol in southwest Niger on Wednesday, according to Nigerien and U.S. officials.
The five Green Berets were attacked while on a routine patrol in an area known to have a presence of insurgents, including from al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Islamic State, a U.S. official told Reuters.
You don't hear much about American forces scattered around the continent of Africa because their role is to help local governments prevent small jihadi problems from growing into big jihadi problems.
While still mostly small problems (Nigeria's Boko Haram was a large one, of course), there are a lot of jihadi problems around Africa south of the North African littorals.
And no, this is not an example of "mission creep." Mission creep is going in for one mission--like famine relief in Somalia; and then staying to nation-build without a real debate over ends and means.
This is an example of means creep. That is, the mission is to prevent jihadis from de-stabilizing the region and we find that we need to help locals a bit more to carry out the same mission.
It is disturbing that we need to do more to contain the jihadis, but I'd rather try to contain them than let them get to the point of a Somalia, Mali, or Nigeria again.
As an aside, it seems odd to see the special forces called "green berets," since I thought that term was out of style since Vietnam.
UPDATE: A fourth American special forces soldier died in the ambush.
