The video also has reveals more detail than was previously revealed by the Pentagon about the fact the mission was not properly authorized and how it diverged from the original plan. Fortunately no one was injured further,” according to the military narrator. That force “arrived by vehicle at the team’s location and mistook the team for enemy forces, firing on them for 48 seconds with automatic weapons until they were positively identified. What had not been revealed is what happened when another Nigerien military team came to rescue them but did not realize they were not ISIS fighters. New details reveal slain US soldier's harrowing last stand Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida, died Octoin southwest Niger as a result of enemy fire. and Nigerian train, advise and assist mission.Sgt. The Department of Defense announced today the death of Sgt. A team member moved into a clearing, waved an American flag to the helicopters to establish their identity as friendly forces,” the narrator says. “French helicopters arrived in the vicinity at 1600 hours and searched for the team for 40 minutes. The footage also shows one American step into a clearing waving a US flag to signal the group’s identity. “They wrote short messages to loved ones on personal devices, believing they would soon be overrun,” says the US military narrator. The video narrator notes they all believed at that point they were going to be killed. The footage shows a group of seven American and four Nigerien troops escaped the ambush after several minutes and fled into a swamp to establish their final defensive position. The segments are labeled on the recording as “mission” footage indicating they show the actual event, according to two defense officials. Two staff officials in the Pentagon press office asked that the video of Johnson being recovered not be shown but the Pentagon ultimately decided to make it public after requests were made by the media.įor the first time, the video shows segments of the aftermath of the ambush taken by drones and aircraft overhead. Military investigation finds series of failures led to deadly Niger ambush Niger has not released the names of its soldiers who were killed in the attack. The other Americans killed were Staff Sgt. The entire video which includes extensive details about the mission and the attack on the 12-member team and their partner Nigerien force had been shown to members of Congress as well as during military briefings on the seven-month investigation into the October 4 ambush. Based on evidence gathered at the scene, it is now clear he was separated from his unit, tried to get to a safe position but was overrun and killed. Johnson’s fate had captured national attention when it was revealed he could not be located for hours after the ambush. Footage from a drone overhead showing Johnson’s recovery comes at the end of the video as Nigerien forces bring his body out from under a tree and prepare to load him into a truck to return him to American forces.ĭefense officials said this portion of the video has been shown to the Johnson family. La David Johnson being recovered from under a thorn tree in Niger, 48 hours after he was killed in the ISIS ambush. The video, not previously released to the public, shows the body of Sgt. The video, produced by the US military and given to CNN by the Pentagon, comes on the heels of the summary of a classified 6,000-word US military report being made public last week. A 23-minute video that was used to brief members of Congress on the October 2017 Niger ambush that killed four US soldiers and five Nigeriens provides new insight into what went wrong.
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