The investigation into the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in an ambush in Niger last October has been completed and is on the desk of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the Pentagon said Monday.
The findings of the military probe will not be made public until the families of the fallen soldiers have been briefed and Congress informed, which sources indicated could happen as soon as this week.
Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, is scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday morning, but it’s not known if he will be giving any details of the five-month-long investigation into the deaths.
The last minutes in the lives of three of the four U.S. soldiers killed were recorded on a military helmet camera, and a video from that captured camera has been circulating on the Internet for weeks.
“We are not going to confirm the authenticity of the video. They are using this type of propaganda as a desperate recruiting tool,” Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Monday.
“We ask the media and public and all responsible entities not to aid these terrorists recruiting efforts by viewing or bringing to attention these images, these videos. You are complicit in amplifying ISIS propaganda if you do that.”
Portions of the video have already been shown on “CBS Evening News,” which aired an edited clip in which one U.S. soldier could be seen dragging another to cover behind an SUV, and later showed an enemy fighter firing what appeared to be a point-blank shot at the downed U.S. soldier who was wearing the helmet camera.
It was not clear if that soldier was already dead.
What the video does show is how isolated, outnumbered and outgunned the U.S. troops were on what was supposed to be a low-risk mission to meet with tribal leaders.
The U.S. troops were relying on the French military for close-air support and emergency evacuation, but the Pentagon has said it took two hours for French helicopters and fighter planes to arrive.
The Oct. 4 attack claimed the lives of Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39; Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29; and Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25.
La David T. Johnson, who was separated from the group, was found dead two days after the attack. It was the largest loss of American troops in combat in Africa since the “Black Hawk Down” firefight in Somalia in 1993.
