TONGO TONGO AMBUSH (3/3): TEAM LEADERS PREPARE FOR THE WORST
CPT Michael Perozeni and SFC Brent Bartels were the leaders on the ground during the Tongo Tongo ambush and coordinated both the American and the Nigerien forces.
They had raised their concerns about the operation before the ambush, because they had no heavy weapons and no air support. Higher command pushed to continue the search for IS leader Doundou Chefou anyway.
After the Green Berets and their support element had been shot at and had twice been forced to break contact to avoid being encircled, they were still being chased by a large number of well-armed Islamists. Most of the Nigerien troops had fled one after another, so the remaining seven were now riding in a single vehicle, pursued by several armed trucks. During the withdrawal 5 of the 7 men on board took gunshot wounds, one Nigerien soldier was killed and the driver was shot through the elbow but kept driving. The Special Forces team leader was hit so badly that he fell off the truck bed and the team had to turn back to pick him up.
As they were able to break contact again, they ran into the 4 Green Berets who had earlier separated from the group of their own accord to search for the comrades left behind, without success (see previous post). The enemy forces still had the greater numbers, and they also had motorcycles, armed vehicles and mortars, which they now brought down on the American team leaders and the comrades they had left. The special forces were cut off from almost every side and sent a final radio message saying they were about to be overrun. Then they destroyed the radios and other sensitive material and said goodbye to their loved ones by text message. CPT Perozeni kept trying to call for help over iMessage, but the messages were not delivered (see photo).
It took about 1 hour before French commandos arrived with air support and the survivors could be pulled out.
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