Fatal delay in rescuing Green Berets

The ambush by 50 Isis militants in West African Niger which left four American special forces soldiers dead has raised so many questions that the Pentagon is still trying to find out what went wrong and why no one came to their rescue for TWO hours. Twelve members of the elite US Army Green Berets were supposedly on a routine training mission with a bunch of Nigerien soldiers on October 4, close to the border with Mali when they were attacked with machinegun fire, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. The ambush took place outside the border village of Tongo Tongo. It's not clear why the Green Berets and Nigerien soldiers turned up at night in a small convoy of trucks. But it seems they spent the night nearby and in the morning started chatting up the locals which went on for a long time, certainly longer than they had anticipated. They must have been gathering intelligence about hostile militants in the area. Then there was the sound of gunfire outside the village. Thinking there was a terrorist attack underway, they rushed off and straight into an ambush. The gunfire was a faked attack to draw the Green Berets and Nigerien soldiers into a trap. According to General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, no call for air support was made for a whole hour, even though they were heavily outnumbered. When a call was finally made, an American surveillance drone apeared overhead within minutes, providing real-time video of the firefight underway. But it seems the drone, a Predator or Reaper, was unarmed, so no Hellfire missiles were dropped. The French Air Force has Mirage jets in the region because of France's ongoing military operations in northern Mali against Isis and al-Qaeda militants. But it took the Mirage crews 30 minutes to scramble and another 30 minutes to get to Tongo Tongo and, according to General Dunford, they fired no weapons once they got there but made several sweeps over the scene of the fighting. Perhaps it was just too risky to open fire. It was several hours later that French armed helicopters and a Nigerien "quick-reaction" force arrived to evacuate the dead and wounded. Three Green Berets were dead, two more were wounded, and five Nigerien soldiers were also dead. A fourth US soldier, a mechanic serving with the special forces, was found 48 hours later. He had mysteriously gone missing and it's still not clear under what circumstances he was killed. Much of the media attention has been on the spat between Trump and the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson, the 25-year-old special forces mechanic, after Trump made a mess of his condolence telephone conversation. The widow said he made remarks that caused her to break down in tears. But the ambush itself, why the rescue attempt was delayed, and why the Green Berets, not supposedly on a combat mission, were in an area known for its hostile environment will increasingly become the story. It looks like people in the village of Tongo Tongo tipped off the Isis-linked militants, and they were set up. A tragedy for the families of the four dead American soldiers, and a huge question mark for US Africa Command and the Pentagon over what went so badly wrong.