America’s wars in Yemen, Somalia, and Niger are not secret, but they manage to fly under the radar for months at a time, unless something goes dramatically well, or terribly wrong.

Last year when U.S. Africa Command revealed that four U.S. special operations soldiers were killed in a fierce firefight after being ambushed in Niger, most Americans had no idea the U.S. had roughly 800 troops in the North African nation, more than were in Syria at the time.