The Islamic State (IS) group has published a video purporting to show an ambush in Niger in which four US soldiers were killed last October.<\/p>\n
It is not clear why the release of the video – via an IS outlet on messaging app Telegram – was delayed until now.<\/p>\n
The video consists mainly of raw footage, including images apparently filmed using a helmet camera belonging to one of the soldiers.<\/p>\n
The video seems to suggest that the attack was carried out by IS militants.<\/p>\n
The deaths became a major political row in the US\u00a0when the widow of one of the soldiers, Army Sgt La David Johnson, said President Donald Trump had made her cry during a condolence phone call by suggesting her husband “knew what he signed up for”.<\/p>\n
The president later called a US congresswoman’s account of the phone call “totally fabricated”.<\/p>\n
What happens in the video?<\/strong><\/p>\n The propaganda film begins with still images showing an alleged pledge of allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by members of the Sahel-based group Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).<\/p>\n JNIM was formed from a number of West African jihadist groups in March 2017, and originally had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n This alleged switch to IS was reported last month by a number of analysts, but it had not been promoted by IS outlets on social media.<\/p>\n The graphic video shows several armed militants walking and running in a desert area, apparently heading for the ambush, reports BBC Monitoring.<\/p>\n The soldiers are seen driving away in a white vehicle, with coloured smoke grenades providing cover.<\/p>\n After a cut in the video, the US soldiers are seen around another vehicle, with one soldier driving and the other two walking beside while seemingly firing at their attackers.<\/p>\n Then, one of the soldiers drops to the ground. The man wearing the helmet camera tries to raise the fallen man.<\/p>\n The soldier driving the vehicle jumps out and helps drag the soldier to cover, before he and the camera-wearer run into the scrub.<\/p>\n While running, the soldier wearing the camera falls to the ground. The footage ends with the camera unmoving, and militants surrounding the soldier, firing at point-blank range.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Islamic State (IS) group has published a video purporting to show an ambush in Niger in which four US soldiers were killed last October. It is not clear why the release of the video – via an IS outlet on messaging app Telegram – was delayed until now. The video consists mainly of raw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":407097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[24,1183],"yoast_head":"\n