US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis thanked his French counterpart Friday for France’s assistance in the immediate aftermath of a Niger ambush that killed four US troops, as questions mounted in Washington about what happened.
French warplanes flew overhead and armed helicopters evacuated the US wounded following the October 4 attack near the Mali border, which is thought to have been carried out by jihadists.
The Pentagon chief has previously praised the less than 30-minute French response time after the attack on the joint US-Niger patrol, and officials say it shows how well the two countries’ forces are working together.
But critics have pounced on the fact that it fell to France to help American troops as evidence the US military did not have adequate force-protection measures in place, and had failed in its intelligence gathering.
The ambush, which also killed four Nigerien…
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