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DEEP INSIDE LIBYA

Four Black Hawk helicopters flew low above the desert floor in the dead of night.

The pilots flew by instruments, without running lights. Only a sliver of moon could be seen in the clear, cloudless, starry skies.

They were not coming from the north. Not from the Nimitz or any of the U.S. aircraft carriers patrolling the Mediterranean. Nor were they coming from NATO bases in Italy or southern Europe. Instead, the choppers—and the SEAL commandos they were carrying—were coming in from the south, from a base in Niger, a country emerging as an increasingly important counterterrorism partner in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the joint missions the U.S. ran from Niger were against Boko Haram and other radical Islamist terror groups operating in the region. None of the SEAL forces deployed there had ever before conducted missions in North Africa, but this had suddenly become the White House’s highest priority.

As they approached the Libyan city of Ghat, two of the choppers broke formation, heading west and hugging the Algerian border. The other two remained on course and were soon circling the compound. Using thermal imaging, neither the pilots nor their gunners spotted any signs of life. So one by one the commandos began fast-roping down to the desert floor. Once the two lead choppers were emptied, they moved eastward toward the Algerian border and were replaced by the other two birds that soon reached the compound and deployed their troops.

The first group established a secure perimeter. The second group set up generators and flood lamps, then began videotaping the scene, sifting through the sand and rubble, gathering body parts, taking DNA samples, and searching for anything that could provide a clearer picture of what had happened there.

What they found left them all stunned.