Eight soldiers nominated for DSCs, Silver Stars for actions during deadly Niger attack

The team leader at the center of the investigation into a deadly ambush of a special operations unit in Niger last year has been recommended for an award for his valor in combat, the New York Times reported Thursday. Capt. Michael Perozeni, the Green Beret in charge of the mission, could receive a Silver Star for his actions, despite bearing some responsibility, according to the military’s investigation, for the botched mission. Seven more soldiers from that mission are also up for awards, according to the New York Times.

“There will be awards for valor,” Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser. commander of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters when the Pentagon released the investigation in May. A Defense Department spokeswoman would not confirm Thursday whether Perozeni was on that list. “Individual members of the U.S. Special Operations team performed numerous acts of bravery while under fire on Oct. 4, 2017, and their actions are being reviewed for appropriate recognition," Air Force Maj. Sheryll Klinkel said in a statement.

Perozeni, according to the New York Times, was called out in the 8,000-page incident investigation for filing a misleading mission plan, taking 11 U.S. soldiers and 30 Nigeriens into a dangerous area without a back-up plan. According to the official report, the team was going after a key member of the local Islamic State cell, but did not obtain the higher-level approval required to step outside of their train-advise-assist mission with Nigerien counter-terrorism forces.

The New York Times also reported that Perozeni had pushed back against the part of the mission that would turn deadly, but he was ordered by a lieutenant colonel based in Chad to continue the mission. When the soldiers came under attack, each of their eight vehicles — three U.S. vehicles and five Nigerien vehicles became separated from each other within minutes, in a kill zone that was thousands of yards long. Under heavy enemy fire, the vehicles had stopped, and U.S. and Nigerien forces exited to return fire. As enemy forces closed in, Perozeni made a string of split-second decisions to have the U.S. and Nigerien troops get back in their vehicles and pull back to avoid being flanked. But the vehicles ultimately lost contact with each other and did not immediately have visibility on the forces left behind.

Four more soldiers are up for Silver Stars, the third-highest award for valor, the Times reported, and three are recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross ? the award second only to the Medal of Honor. All four soldiers killed in the ambush are under consideration: Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright and Sgt. La David Johnson for the Distinguished Service Cross, and Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Bryan Black for the Silver Star.

During the ambush, La David Johnson and two Nigeriens had been returning fire from outside his vehicle. He fired the vehicle’s M240 mounted machine gun until it ran out of bullets, then picked up an M2010 sniper rifle. When the call came to pull back, the three were trapped. Intense incoming fire kept La David Johnson from being able to reach the driver’s seat.

So, they ran. The Nigeriens were shot; La David Johnson was the only one left. He ran the length of five football fields to reach the only cover in the area: a single thorny tree. He took his position and returned fire as an enemy truck with its own mounted machine gun closed in.

Article from the Army Times

Special Forces and Army Infantry Train Nigerian Infantry to Fight Boko Haram

Background. Wilayat al Sudan al Gharbi (kown by it's former name - Boko Haram) is an extremist Islamic terrorist organization, affilated with, or has sworn allegiance to ISIS and is operating in Northeast Nigeria, using the dense Sambisa forest as an operational base as well as the adjacent borders of Cameroon, Chad and Niger to continue their extremist Islamist campaign against Christians. In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls (the Chibook girls) for sex slaves and wives) and again in February 2018, another 110 girls were thought to have been taken captive by Boko Haram. Founded in 2002 and led since 2009 by Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands and displaced over 2 million from their homes, ranking as one of the the world's first or second deadliest terror groups.

A dozen U.S. troops just wrapped up a seven-week trip to Nigeria, where they trained local soldiers in advanced infantry tactics that, in all likelihood, they’ll use to beat back religious extremist terror in their country. The soldiers, some Green Berets performing a trtaining missions under Fort Bragg’s Security Assistance Training Management Organization (SATMO) with some assistance from some infantrymen from 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, visited the Nigerian Army Infantry School to train 200 soldiers from the 26th Infantry Battalion.

“They face a significant threat from both Boko Haram and ISIS,” Capt. Stephen Gouthro, the group’s officer-in-charge, told Army Times in a Feb. 15 phone interview. “We, as Americans, have been working with this country in various capacities, and this is just one more of those capacities where they would like our assistance with tactics … the way we do business.” SATMO, is mostly known for providing support to foreign military sales. Recently, SATMO soldiers have gone to countries like Slovakia and Colombia to train their troops on that new equipment.

The group in Nigeria focused on advanced infantry skills, starting with patrolling and counter-IED training, working up to movement-to-contact and ambushes or raids with a platoon-sized element. Every day, according to the group’s noncommissioned officer-in-charge, the U.S. soldiers would take the Nigerian soldiers through a variety of training lanes. “One lane could be doing IEDs and raids that day,” said Sgt. 1st Class Chris Campbell. “Another lane would be doing enemy prisoner-of-war searches or ambushes.” Those rotations would go on all day, with a midday break. “We take them out, we assess their capes, and then we try to improve what they already have,” Campbell said.

According to Gouthro, what they already had was more than his soldiers expected going into it. “They’re structured very similarly to what we’re used to, which helps us. They have similar roles,” he said. “They understand that the platoon leader is in charge of the overall plan, understand the platoon sergeant is there to take care of – as we say – the ‘beans and the bullets.’ Sustainment-type operations.”

They had the basics, Campbell said. “I think, really, what they need help with is, a little bit of planning and a little bit of employing leadership tactics on their platoon,” he said. “Because they move well, they just need a little tweaking in controlling, planning and executing their missions at the leadership level.” So the group shared their skills, while being careful not to dictate how they manage discipline and organization. “We do give guidance on that, but at the same time, it’s their army — so we’re not changing the way they do business,” he said. “We’re just building on what they already have.”

The SATMO mission members had some experience with training Iraqi and Afghan forces, he added, but they didn’t want to pre-judge the Nigerian army. “We were very impressed at the level of motivation and desire to learn that the Nigerian soldiers brought to the training,” Gouthro said. And, he added, in all likelihood the 26th Infantry Battalion will soon be using those honed skills in theater. “They’re not specifically slated for a deployment, that we’re aware of, but we know that the rotation will come around for them to rotate up north, to the Lake Chad Basin, where most of the conflict is in the country,” Gouthro said.

While soldiers from both Special Forces and civil affairs backgrounds have been deploying to the area for years to help local forces stabilize, the U.S. presence in the region came to a head late last year when an ambush killed four Americans deployed to Niger.

Green Beret Dead in Mali - SEALS suspected

We were going to wait until the facts became more clearer surrounding the death of Green Beret Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar but the story surrounding the slaying of Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar keeps unraveling, starting with the SEALs-turned-suspects’ assertion that the soldier was drunk the night he died. Logan Melgar hadn’t had a drink on June 4. The Green Beret sergeant’s dry day became a key to unraveling the narrative spun by the elite Navy commandos whom military investigators now suspect killed him, officials familiar with the case said.

Melgar, a staff sergeant in the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group, was specifically selected for an intelligence operation in the West African nation of Mali. He was well respected by the American Embassy staff and the partner forces there, a former U.S. Africa Command official said. But shortly before he died, Melgar told his wife that he had a bad feeling about two of his partners in that effort, both of whom were members of SEAL Team Six. Not wanting to say much more, Melgar informed his wife, Michelle, that he’d tell her the full story when he got back home, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still ongoing.

Now those two Navy SEALs are under investigation for killing Melgar—an investigation, first reported by The New York Times, sending shockwaves throughout the special-operations community. Military experts were hard-pressed to think of another case where elite U.S. troops turned on one another. This account is based on five members of the special-operations community who were not cleared to speak publicly. Representatives of both U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) declined comment for this story, as the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has an active investigation into Melgar’s death. NCIS would not comment beyond confirming the investigation is underway.

Dirty Money, Damning Excuse

There is a minimal U.S. troop presence in Mali at most—nothing compared to the 800 troops in neighboring Niger, another West African nation that hosts a sizable special operations cadre. But special operations forces aid U.S. diplomats, Malian soldiers and their French partners in gathering intelligence on a confluence of capable local militants trending Islamist. As the elite troops do in so many countries, they operate in the shadows, with comparatively little oversight—and what their actions actually look like on the ground can be much dirtier than the heroic image the Pentagon prefers to portray.

For example, part of the intelligence gathering operation in Mali involved a fund used to pay informants. Melgar, two special operations sources say, discovered the SEALs were pocketing some of the money from the informant fund. The SEALS offered to cut him in, but Melgar declined, these sources said.

It is unknown what specifically started the June 4 altercation at 5 a.m. but it escalated. Melgar lost consciousness—and, worse, stopped breathing. The SEALs attempted to open an airway in Melgar’s throat, officials said. It is unknown whether Melgar died immediately. The SEALs and another Green Beret, according to former AFRICOM officials, drove to a nearby French clinic seeking help. Melgar was dead when he arrived at the clinic, the official said. Asphyxiation was the cause of death.

With Melgar dead, an apparent panic set in. The SEALs told superiors that Melgar was drunk during so-called combatives—that is, hand-to-hand fighting exercises. The Intercept reported that one of the SEALs, Petty Officer Anthony E. DeDolph, was a mixed-martial arts pro. A source told The Daily Beast the SEALs filed at least one operational report about the incident and possibly two. At least one of the reports included an account that Melgar was drunk.

It was the worst excuse the SEALs could have made up. A former AFRICOM official who saw the autopsy report said no drugs or alcohol were found in Melgar’s system. At least one source believes he did not drink alcohol at all. The SEALs’ story was unraveling.

Skeptics From the Start

A second former Africa Command official said Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, then commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, was skeptical of the initial reports from the outset. He alerted Army Criminal Investigation Command and told commanders in Mali to preserve evidence.

Melgar’s wife, Michelle, was also suspicious, three sources tell The Daily Beast. She raised concerns about the cause of death and allegations of drinking, according to three people familiar with the investigation, including providing investigators emails sent by her husband about problems he was having with the SEALs.

The Daily Beast has reliably heard Michelle Melgar does not wish to be contacted by reporters and has respected that wish. Just 34 years old when he died, Melgar, a Texan, was an Afghanistan veteran twice over. His hometown paper, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, reported that Melgar was a 2006 graduate of Texas Tech. He enlisted in 2012 and joined the Army as an 18X—an off-the-street Special Forces recruit. He graduated from the Special Forces Qualification course in 2016. “Staff Sgt. Melgar did what most only dream of and excelled at every turn!” wrote a Melgar family representative on social media. “His life was epic! He is missed dearly every single day, but his legacy lives on.”

Article from The Daily Beast, 12 November 2017

U.S. Special Operations - Fighting Terror in Africa

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “war on terror” – much like his predecessor’s – uses partners’ capabilities against terrorists in an effort to protect the country from potential attacks, while minimizing U.S casualties. In Africa, Trump’s continuation of this strategy has resulted in increased reliance on U.S. special operations forces.

The U.S. Special Operations Command Africa now conducts around 100 activities in 20 countries with 1,700 personnel at any given time, according to an October strategic planning guidance report from the command’s head, Brigadier General Donald Bolduc. That is nearly double the number of U.S. special forces operators in Africa since 2014. Moreover, current plans call for the command’s staff to increase by about 100 from its current level of around 275 “over the next couple of years,” Bolduc told online publisher African Defense in September.

This year’s 10th annual Africa special operations forces-focused Flintlock exercise, sponsored by U.S. Africa Command in February and March, was the biggest it has ever been, with more than 2,000 military personnel from 24 African and Western nations participating. After the exercise, U.S. President Donald Trump approved removing certain constraints that former President Barack Obama had put in place on special operations forces airstrikes and raids in Somalia against the al Shabaab terrorist group, which is linked to al Qaeda. Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of the Africa Command, told reporters at the Pentagon in March that the loosening would increase his troops’ flexibility and ability to prosecute targets quickly – although he noted no real authorities under the Trump policy change had yet been handed over. “The threat hasn’t changed. The threat is still there, but I think it’s fair to say that our ability to strike al Shabaab targets in this particular instance will have an impact on their ability to continue what they’re trying to do,” he said.

Critics say this measure removes constraints that minimize civilian casualties. “The Administration appears to believe that U.S. interests would be better served in these places by taking the gloves off and being more forceful and constraining the U.S. military less,” said Stephen Biddle, a professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. “They seem to think it was political correctness for the Obama Administration to have worried so much about civilian casualties, and unlike Obama they’re not politically correct; therefore, they’re not going to be as constrained,” he said.

Waldhauser said a high priority will be placed on preventing civilian casualties. For their part, U.S. special forces operators have had a number of successes against al Shabaab in Somalia. In 2016, a U.S. airstrike killed 150 al Shabaab fighters at a militant graduation ceremony, and in 2014, an American airstrike killed then-al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

But even with these and other successes across Africa – including U.S. and allied countries’ pursuit of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa – terrorism continues to proliferate. A June al-Shabaab attack in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region killed at least 70 people in one of the region’s deadliest attack in years. The militant group Boko Haram terrorizes Nigeria and surrounding countries, such as Chad and Niger. An attack in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, along with coordinated attacks near Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin Research Institute, in June killed at least 17 and left 34 wounded.

ISIS is also attempting to gain ground in Africa through established groups that affiliate with ISIS and then receive ISIS training or funding in return. “If you view ISIS in Iraq and Syria as core ISIS, I think a good way to characterize ISIS on the African continent is global ISIS,” Waldhauser said. It is the job of the Africa Command, he said, “to make sure that those groups stay internal to those countries or internal to those regions” and do not move into Europe or the United States. “A lot of these groups, al Shabaab included, has the intention to do that,” he said, adding, “it’s a question of whether they have the capacity or capability to do that, and al Shabaab has not really demonstrated that.”

Although the U.S. wants to protect itself and its European allies from terror attacks from Africa, the problem is that the United States has “real, but limited, interests in a lot of places around the world, and especially in a lot of parts of sub-Saharan Africa,” Biddle stated. While the United States does not want African countries to become terrorist safe havens, “it’s not a big enough interest that we’re willing to send 100,000 troops to any of these countries to stabilize their real estate,” Biddle said, which is why the Administration is using more special operators who can both aid operations and train and advise African militaries.

The Pentagon has allocated around $250 million over two years to help train the armies and security forces of North, Central, and West African countries. However, “many of those countries keen to engage with the U.S. military have appalling records of poor governance, corruption, and human rights abuses,” said the head of business intelligence for Africa at the Risk Advisory Group, John Siko. Moreover, said Siko, “the gaps between their [U.S. special operations forces’] professionalism and extensive resources and those of the militaries they are training are often vast. … Unless Washington has the patience, money, and political willpower to keep special operators in [a] sort of hybrid role for decades, this is a situation best avoided.”

Still, Army General Tony Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said Trump made clear his priority on counterterrorism missions using the military’s elite forces on a February visit to the command’s headquarters in Tampa, FL. However, without an equal focus on diplomacy – most high-level Africa roles at the State Department have yet to be filled, and Trump has vowed to slash State’s budget by around 30 percent – it is unclear whether a mostly military strategy will be successful.

Article written by Kaitlin Lavinder and originally published on the Cipher Brief

Blackwater Air Supporting Special Forces

From the article "Blackwater Air’ Is Back, and Flying for U.S. Special Forces", posted in the Daily Beast saying that a corporate descendant of the notorious guns-for-hire firm just got a $204 million contract to support American troops in Africa.

A mercenary air force that became a symbol of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is back in action—this time in Central Africa, supporting a shadowy American U.S. Special Forces commando operation targeting the Lord’s Resistance Army. In late January, a source on the ground in Central African Republic spotted a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter with the registry number N408RC carrying American Special Forces troops. The LRA, a cultish band of thieves and rapists led by warlord Joseph Kony, is most active in the forested region where Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo meet.

In 2010, President Barack Obama deployed around 100 Green Berets and other personnel to Central Africa to help local forces hunt down Kony and the LRA. Seven years later, Operation Observant Compass continues, mostly unnoticed by the press. The Pentagon asked Congress for $23 million to extend the operation through 2017.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Sikorsky helicopter that The Daily Beast’s source observed in Central African Republic belongs to Illinois-based EP Aviation, LLC. EP Aviation was once a subsidiary of Academi, the Virginia-based company that was formerly known as Blackwater. The “EP” stands for “Erik Prince,” Blackwater’s founder and the younger brother of billionaire U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

The copter’s appearance is a reminder of the tangled web of corporate relationships that support the Pentagon’s expansive shadow wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa—and some of the companies’ ties to wealthy, powerful American politicians. During the height of the Iraq War, Blackwater managed a for-profit army in Baghdad that included Little Bird helicopters and other aircraft. The U.S. State Department and Defense Department have awarded Blackwater and its successors contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Iraq, Blackwater's diminutive Little Birds usually carried a crew of four—two pilots and two door gunners armed with assault rifles. With their very corporate-looking blue-and-silver paint schemes, the Blackwater copters became icons of a grinding, unpopular war. The Little Birds were also symbols of Blackwater's heavy-handed tactics. The company and its employees in Iraq were involved in several suspicious killings -- and worse. In September 2007, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square. Four of the mercenaries went to prison for the killings.

Blackwater's aviation operations were also controversial. One Little Bird was shot down in Baghdad and its five-man crew was killed. Another Little Bird crashed in Iraq and the two pilots died. The company lost several other aircraft in fatal accidents in Iraq. In 2004, a Blackwater transport plane crashed in a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, killing the three crew and three U.S. troops who were passengers. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the pilots deliberately flew a risky flight path through the mountains. "I swear to God, they wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was," the cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot saying shortly before the crash.

Dogged by lawsuits, Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 and moved to the United Arab Emirates. He subsequently founded Frontier Resource Group, a company that reportedly provides pilots for the Emirates’ brutal air war in Libya. Prince’s new company also tried to skirt U.S. regulations in order to sell attack planes to Salva Kiir, one of two warring strongmen in South Sudan. Prince has reportedly advised President Donald Trump, who appointed DeVos as education secretary despite stiff opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans. DeVos contributed millions of dollars to the campaigns of senators who voted to approve her appointment.

Following Prince’s departure, Blackwater changed its name several times and came under new ownership. In 2010 it sold EP Aviation and other aviation assets to Illinois-based AAR, also known as Airlift Group, a self-described provider of “world-class expeditionary and conventional aviation solutions.” Around 60 ex-Blackwater aircraft continue to be registered in EP Aviation’s name. AAR did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.

U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa rely heavily on innocent-looking, civilian-style aircraft. Some are actually military aircraft that wear civilian paint schemes. Others are civilian aircraft operating under contract with the Pentagon. On Feb. 6, the Defense Department awarded AAR/Airlift Group a $204-million contract to support U.S. forces in Africa through January 2018. According to the military's official "Central Africa Task Order," dated November 2016, American troops in the region need at least two fixed-wing planes in Entebbe, Uganda; another two fixed-wing planes in Nzara, South Sudan; plus five helicopters in Obo, Central African Republic. U.S. Special Operations Command was not able to fulfill an interview request before this story's deadline.

The civilian planes and copters transporting American commandos in their hunt for Kony and the LRA can expect to come under fire, according to the military's official work statement, dated October 2016. "In the event a contractor operating a mission is illuminated or 'spotlighted,' or is fired upon in the air or on the ground, the crew shall note the date, time and approximate area from which the event originated," the statement noted. But unlike Blackwater's Little Birds in Iraq, the mercenary copters in Central Africa aren't armed—and cannot shoot back.