Senate panel to receive classified Niger briefing

The Senate Armed Services Committee will receive a classified briefing on Niger on Thursday, the panel announced Tuesday.

The committee will be briefed by Robert Karem, assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs, and Maj. Gen. Albert Elton II, Joint Staff deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism.

The briefing comes after several committee members, including Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), slammed the Pentagon for failing to keep them in the loop on operations in Niger.

The criticism has mounted after four U.S. soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush on their way back from a reconnaissance mission in the village of Tongo Tongo, near the Niger-Mali border.

The attack shined a spotlight on the little-noticed deployment of 1,000 U.S. troops to Niger and surrounding countries. Pentagon officials have said they are there on a mission to train and advise local forces fighting terrorists.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an Armed Services Committee member, on Sunday said he was unaware the United States had that many troops in the region prior to the attack.

Lawmakers were notified in a June letter from the White House that the United States had about 945 troops in the Chad Basin area. In March, U.S. Africa Command’s 2017 posture statement to Congress also mentioned “approximately 1,000 personnel conducting 12 named operations across a nine nation region” in West Africa.

Asked Monday about lawmakers’ criticisms, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford said he thought the Pentagon had been doing a good job informing Congress. But Dunford added that if lawmakers say the Pentagon needs to do better, then it does.

“If the Congress doesn’t believe that they’re getting sufficient information, then I need to double my efforts to provide them information,” said Dunford. “We thought were doing alright. What’s most important is how the Congress feels about that, and so we need to double our communications efforts and we’ll do that.”

Attempting to clear up confusion about the attack, Dunford on Monday laid out the timeline as the Pentagon knows it now.

On Oct. 3, 12 U.S. soldiers and 30 Nigerien troops set out on a reconnaissance mission to Tongo Tongo. They came under attack Oct. 4 after they left Tongo Tongo and were en route back to their base.

One hour elapsed between the U.S. soldiers coming into contact with militants affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the soldiers calling for help. From there, it took French Mirage jets 30 minutes to be ready to head out and another 30 minutes to arrive. Prior to the French jets’ arrival, a U.S. drone arrived on the scene, but did not fire.

Other questions about the attack will be answered in the course of the investigation, Dunford said.

“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,” Dunford said. “The only thing I’m asking for today is a bit of patience to make sure what we provide to you, when we provide it, is factual.”