The Department of Defense released the findings of two investigations into a January 2020 terrorist attack in Kenya that claimed the lives of three Americans.
Two concurrent investigations, one of which was an independent review, found that troops at the Manda Bay base were ill-prepared to fend off a terror attack through “complacency,” blaming the shortcomings on that, not criminal activity.
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In the early morning hours of Jan. 5, 2020, al Shabaab fighters mortared the Kenyan Defense Force installation and Camp Simba in conjunction with an assault on the airfield. There were between 30 and 40 terrorists involved in the attack, Gen. Paul Funk, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command and overseer of the independent review, told reporters Thursday.
In the ensuing fire, U.S. Army Spc. Henry Mayfield Jr. and two contractors, Bruce Triplett and Dustin Harrison, were killed, as were five terrorists — but not before they were able to destroy seven aircraft.
“In addition to determining that the al-Shabaab attack was the proximate cause of the deaths and injuries to U.S. personnel and the property loss, the USAFRICOM investigation found four causal factors that contributed to the outcome of the January 5, 2020, attack,” Air Force spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement. “Those factors included an inadequate force protection focus; an inadequate understanding of the threat; inadequate security force preparation; and problems with mission command, including poor unity of command at the tactical level.”
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Neither investigation found “criminal negligence nor misconduct by any U.S. personnel,” though each concluded that there was a “culture of complacency [that] permeated multiple leadership teams,” Ryder added.
The service members who were deemed to have acted negligently ranged from enlisted personnel to senior officers.
The Air Force implemented additional training scenarios for security forces and modified pre-deployment preparations following the attack.
