SEAL Team 6 rescues
hostage in Nigeria and takes out all but 1 of the captors: ‘They
were all dead before they knew what happened’
In the early morning hours on Saturday, U.S. military forces
rescued an American held hostage by a group of armed men in
northern Nigeria, the Pentagon announced. No U.S. military
personnel were injured in the raid.
Following the Pentagon announcement, President Donald
Trump tweeted that it was a “big win for our very elite U.S.
Special Forces.”
Multiple news stories identified the hostage as 27-year-old
Philip Walton, an American citizen living in Massalata, a
small rural village in Niger near the Nigerian border, who was
abducted by a group of six armed gunmen on Tuesday, according
to Reuters.
Saturday’s rescue operation was coordinated by the U.S.
government, along with Niger, and Nigeria, ABC news
reported.
According to ABC News, American and Nigerien officials did not
believe that the hostage-takers were affiliated with terrorist
organizations, but because hostages are often sold to those groups,
the decision was made to act swiftly.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Though the Pentagon did not identify which unit or units were
involved in the operation, ABC
News, Fox, CBS, and Reuters have reported
that it was the Navy’s SEAL Team 6.
According to ABC News, the SEALs killed all but one of the seven
captors, with one counterterrorism source telling ABC, “They were
all dead before they knew what happened.”
Pentagon public affairs officials referred all questions
regarding the operation back to their initial press release:
“U.S. forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the
early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an
American citizen held hostage by a group of armed
men,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said in the
statement. “This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of
the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were
injured during the operation