Ongoing Operations after 3 US Army Commandos Killed in Niger Attack

Niger troops patrol near Diffa on June 16, 2016. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)
Niger troops patrol near Diffa on June 16, 2016. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)
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Ongoing Operations after 3 US Army Commandos Killed in Niger Attack

Niger troops patrol near Diffa on June 16, 2016. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)
Niger troops patrol near Diffa on June 16, 2016. (AFP Photo/Issouf Sanogo)

Military operations were underway on Thursday near Niger's border with Mali the day after three US Army special operations commandos were killed and two others were wounded in an ambush on a patrol in southwest Niger.

Nigerien, US and French troops were conducting military operations in the zone on Thursday, a Nigerien security source said without providing additional details.

An official at Mali's defense ministry said military operations were taking place within Niger and that Malian forces had reinforced their checkpoints along the border.

On Wednesday, the two wounded commandos were taken to Niamey, the capital, and are in stable condition, said US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident publicly.

The officials said the commandos, who were Green Berets, were likely attacked by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb militants.

In a statement, US Africa Command said the forces were with a joint US and Nigerien patrol north of Niamey, near the Mali border, when they came under hostile fire.

Africa Command said the US forces are in Niger to provide training and security assistance to the Nigerien Armed Forces in their efforts against violent extremists.

The attack marks the first known US combat casualties in Niger.

According to Radio France Internationale, the ambush took place after militants from Mali attacked the village of Tongo Tongo in Tillaberi on Wednesday. 

A counter-operation was launched, but the American and Niger soldiers fell into a trap, said the radio report. 

The White House said President Donald Trump was notified about the attack Wednesday night as he flew aboard Air Force One from Las Vegas to Washington.

Militant groups form part of a growing regional insurgency in the poor, sparsely populated deserts of West Africa's Sahel.

They have stepped up attacks on UN peacekeepers, Malian soldiers and civilian targets after being driven back in northern Mali by a French-led military intervention in 2013.



French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
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French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)

France's intelligence chief said on Tuesday that all aspects of Iran's nuclear program have been pushed back several months after American and Israeli air strikes, but there is uncertainty over where its highly-enriched uranium stocks are.

"The Iranian nuclear program is the material, it is highly-enriched uranium, it is a capacity to convert this uranium from the gaseous phase to the solid phase. It is the manufacturing of the core and it is the delivery," Nicolas Lerner, who heads the DGSE intelligence service, told LCI television.

"Our assessment today is that each of these stages has been very seriously affected, very seriously damaged and that the nuclear program, as we knew it, has been extremely delayed, probably many months."

Lerner, who was speaking for the first time on national television, said a small part of Iran's highly-enriched uranium stockpile had been destroyed, but the rest remained in the hands of the authorities.

"Today we have indications (on where it is), but we cannot say with certainty as long as the IAEA does not restart its work. It's very important. We won't have the capacity to trace it (the stocks)," Lerner said.

Other intelligence assessments have also suggested that Iran retains a hidden stockpile of enriched uranium and the technical capacity to rebuild.

Lerner echoed those comments saying there was a possibility Iran could press ahead with a clandestine program with smaller enrichment capacities.

"That's why France is so attached to finding a diplomatic solution to this nuclear crisis," he said.