The soldiers had heard reports that a leader of the militant group had been coming from Mali to resupply on fuel and food at Tongo Tongo, whose villagers are seen as sympathetic to the extremists. The troops were anxious to follow up. 
 
 Suddenly, on the scrubby desert horizon, men on motorbikes appeared — a sign of likely terrorist activity. Motorbikes are the vehicle of choice of insurgent groups operating in the area, allowing them to easily navigate the harsh terrain, especially now, the end of the muddy rainy season. To crack down, the government of Niger recently banned the bikes in the area. 
 
 The American and Nigerien accounts differ on the next point: According to Nigerien officials, the convoy, described as a light patrol, pursued the men on motorcycles until they crossed into Mali. The 50 or so soldiers in the Nigerien-led convoy turned back and headed to Tongo Tongo to question village officials. 
 
 According to the American service members, they just saw the men on motorcycles nearby, but did not go after them, said Defense Department officials familiar with their version of events. 
 
 Both accounts then converge again, a Defense Department official said. The village chief in Tongo Tongo seemed to be stalling the service members, and military officials now believe he was allowing time for insurgents to assemble. 
 
 Eventually, after talking to the village chief, the troops got into their vehicles to return to their base, a two-hour drive. But less than five minutes after they drove out of the village, the convoy was ambushed by a group that outnumbered them two to one. 
 
 About 100 armed insurgents, many of whom were on motorbikes — two or three people a bike — as well as others in about 10 sport utility vehicles, surrounded the convoy. They were armed with heavy weapons, including antiaircraft weaponry as well as rocket-propelled grenades, according to a Nigerien official. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Ken Dilanian and Courtney Kube 
 
 WASHINGTON — A senior congressional aide who has been briefed on the deaths of four U.S. servicemen in Niger says the ambush by militants stemmed in part from a "massive intelligence failure." 
 
 The Pentagon has said that 40 to 50 militants ambushed a 12-man U.S. force in Niger on Oct. 4, killing four and wounding two. The U.S. patrol was seen as routine and had been carried out nearly 30 times in the six months before the attack, the Pentagon has reported. 
 
 The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said the House and Senate armed services committees have questions about the scope of the U.S. mission in Niger, and whether the Pentagon is properly supporting the troops on the ground there. 
 
 There was no U.S. overhead surveillance of the mission, he said, and no American quick-reaction force available to rescue the troops if things went wrong. If it weren't for the arrival of French fighter jets, he said, things could have been much worse for the Americans. 
 
 Congress also has many unanswered questions about what happened, he said, including about the specifics of the mission that day and the accounts lawmakers have been given about the timeline of the attack and rescue. 
 
 The aide said questions are being asked about whether the U.S. soldiers were intentionally delayed in the village they were visiting. He said they began pursuing some men on motorcycles, who lured them into a complex ambush. The enemy force had "technical" vehicles — light, improvised military vehicles — and rocket-propelled grenades, the official said. 
 
 After the rescue when it became clear that one soldier was missing, "movements and actions to try and find him and bring him back were considered. They just were not postured properly [to get him]." The body of Sgt. La David Johnson was not recovered until nearly 48 hours after the Oct. 4 attack. 
 
 A Pentagon spokesperson called the claim of an intelligence failure "speculation." 
 
 "An investigation is underway," said the spokesperson. "At the conclusion of the investigation, we will provide further details." 
 
 On Thursday, Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said that "every tactical engagement doesn’t necessarily proceed from an intelligence failure. We'll look at it and we'll come to conclusions about how intelligence could have supported adequately or inadequately the engagement that occurred. But on a battlefield, the enemy gets a vote." 
 
 "Sub-Saharan Africa is a very difficult place to operate," said Gen. McKenzie. 
 
 On Friday afternoon, Defense Secretary James Mattis met with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Niger raid. 
 
 Earlier this week, McCain said the committee had not been provided with the information about the Niger mission that it "deserves." 
 
 Myeshia Johnson cries over the casket of her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in an ambush in Niger, upon his body's arrival in Miami, on Oct. 17, 2017. WPLG / AP 
 
 Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Friday that it's too early to say whether there was an intelligence failure, "but that's exactly the kind of questions we should be asking ourselves." 
 
 He said Congress will require more information from a Trump administration that is expanding counterterrorism operations across the globe. 
 
 Trump is loosening the rules of engagement when it comes to lethal action against terrorists, and expanding the counterterrorism fight to different parts of the world, including across Africa, Graham said. 
 
 "The war is morphing," he said. "You're going to see more actions in Africa, not less." 
 
 In that context, Graham said, "I will insist that Congress is informed more often and in more detail," about military operations. 
 
 He added, "As the war expands, as the military had more authority, Congress is going to require more information." 
 
 Pentagon officials say operations in the region have already "tightened up" and there's been an operational "pause" while the U.S. military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) assesses the situation. U.S. officials believe the attack was carried out by a local terror group that claims association with ISIS. 
 
 Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AFRICOM since 2016, told Congress in March that only 20 to 30 percent of AFRICOM's needs for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" flights were being met. The Marine Corps general said there weren't enough helicopters to find wounded or dead soldiers, and that African partners weren't able to help with recovery missions. 
 
 "For personnel recovery," he said, "Africa Command relies heavily on contract search and rescue assets." ||||| Fighters mounted on pick-up trucks and motorcycles have killed at least 12 paramilitary police and wounded several others in a new attack in Niger's restive southwest, near the Mali border. 
 
 The raid on the officers' base happened in the early hours of Saturday in the town of Ayourou in the Tillaberi region, 200km northwest of the capital, Niamey. 
 
 It comes after an ambush at the beginning of October killed four Nigerien and US soldiers along the border, which has been regularly targeted by armed groups. 
 
 "There was a new attack. Twelve gendarmes were killed. We have launched search operations," Mohamed Bazoum, interior minister, told AFP news agency on Saturday 
 
 A security source on the scene said the attackers - believed to had crossed over from Mali - were heavily armed. 
 
 "They had rocket launchers and machine guns. They came in four vehicles each with about seven fighters," the source told Reuters news agency. 
 
 Several armed groups and well-armed ethnic militia are known to operate in the area near the border with Mali, and there have been at least 46 attacks recorded there since early last year.
– Confusion around the attack that left four US soldiers dead in Niger earlier this month continues, with the Pentagon investigating whether the soldiers had left a routine patrol to chase insurgents without the proper approval, the New York Times reports. US soldiers say they "noticed" insurgents in the area while conducting a patrol—one the Pentagon says the team has conducted nearly 30 times in the past six months, according to NBC News—but did not chase them. US soldiers say the insurgents later ambushed them. But Nigerien military officials say the team, which included Nigerien soldiers, chased the insurgents across the Mali border only to be ambushed on their way back. A mission to go after insurgents would have required approval from higher-ups and would complicate the Pentagon's claim that the US isn't involved in combat operations in Niger. The conflicting accounts given by US soldiers and the Nigerien military are just one more question surrounding the Oct. 4 attack, questions that include information as basic as what US troops are doing in a remote corner of Niger in the first place. A senior congressional aide briefed on the attack says the whole thing represents a "massive intelligence failure." The aide says the mission was being carried out without any overhead surveillance and without a "quick-reaction force" to step in if things went bad, which they did. He says the attack could have been much worse if French fighter jets hadn't shown up. A Pentagon spokesperson says any talk of intelligence failure is "speculation" while an investigation is still underway. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports at least 12 Nigerien troops were killed by insurgents in an attack Saturday along the same border with Mali.