美国有线新闻 CNN 美军方透露美军在尼日尔遭袭事件细节 疑问仍存

The U.S. military is trying to determine what exactly happened during a mission on October 4th in the African country of Niger, also pronounced nee-Zhair.

A unit of 12 Green Berets, special forces of the U.S. Army, was on patrol with 30 Nigerien troops. And they were ambushed 1 by around 50 fighters believed to be affiliated 3 with the ISIS terrorist group. Four U.S. Green Berets and five Nigerien soldiers were killed.

And the ambush 2 raised a number of questions. What was the mission of the U.S. and Nigerien forces? How did it go wrong? Why was one of the fallen U.S. servicemen not recovered for two days?

Some American lawmakers have criticized the military for not being forthcoming enough with answers. In a news conference this week, the chairman of the U.S. Joint 4 Chiefs of Staff, this is the senior ranking member of the U.S. military who reports to the president, he criticized the speculation 5 about the ambush and said the investigation 6 would provide all the details once it's complete.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: CNN has learned the U.S. soldiers ambushed in Niger were under orders to gather intelligence on a terrorist leader believed to be operating in the area. The unit was not however on a mission to kill or capture the leader.

Their mission was one of the unit's first patrols. The team had only been in the country a matter of weeks, defense 7 officials said.

On the morning of October 3rd, one day before the ambush, U.S. and Nigerien forces left the capital of Niamey, en route to the village of Tongo Tongo to meet local leaders.

GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: They did not expect resistance on this particular patrol, at least when they first planned it.

SCIUTTO: The next morning, October 4th, as they completed their meeting, the troops suspected the villagers were delaying their departure, the first indication something may have been wrong. Later that morning, the U.S. and Nigerien forces left the village and were heading back to their operating base when some 50 ISIS-affiliated fighters ambushed them, with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

The U.S. soldiers fought back but were in unarmored vehicles and carried only light weapons. It was one hour before they called in air support.

DUNFORD: When they didn't ask for support for their first hour, my judgment 8 would be that that unit thought they could handle the situation without additional support.

SCIUTTO: Within minutes, a U.S. drone arrived overhead, capturing video of the scene.

French Mirage 9 jets swooped 10 in one hour later. Two hours in total after the firefight had begun.

The French aircraft which were armed did not open fire because they could not distinguish enemy from friendly forces on the ground.

In the chaos 11, Sergeant 12 La David Johnson was separated from the rest of the team and left behind. Forty-eight hours after the attack, Nigerien forces found his body, a full mile away from the central scene of the ambush.

The circumstances surrounding Johnson's death remained one of the most pressing questions of the investigation.

DUNFORD: We owe the families as much information as we can find out about what happened and we owe the American people an explanation of what their men and women were doing at this particular time.