In the early morning hours of 6 December 2017, militants believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State in West Africa attacked a patrol of US Army Special Forces and Nigerian soldiers near
Diffa
Diffa is a city and Urban Commune in the extreme southeast of Niger, near the border with Nigeria. It is the administrative seat of both Diffa Region, and the smaller Diffa Department.Geels, Jolijn, (2006) ''Bradt Travel Guide - Niger'', pgs. 2 ...
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesthe deadly ambush in the village of
Tongo Tongo
Tongo Tongo () is a village in the rural commune (municipality) of Tondikiwindi (also ''Tondi Kiwindi''), Ouallam Department, Tillabéri Region in southwestern Niger, 174 km north of the nation's capital Niamey and 28 km south of the b ...
that left at least 30 dead including four American Special Forces personnel. The December firefight was not initially reported and only learned three months later after a declassified report made for Congress was obtained by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. The firefight is just one of 10 other incidents involving American personal in Niger. During these previous firefights, excluding the ambush that happened two months earlier, only a few enemy combatants were killed while no Americans or Nigerians were hurt.
This event and, most prominently, the October ambush led to security changes for US forces operating in the region such as armored vehicles instead of lightly armored SUV's, the arming of drones, and taking a closer look at when US forces conduct operations with local troops.