Niamey, Niger — Jeremiah W. Johnson of Springboro was killed Wednesday while on active duty in Africa according to a release from the U.S. Dept. of Defense.
U.S. Africa Command said the U.S. forces were Niger to provide training and security assistance to the Nigerien Armed Forces in their efforts against violent extremists.
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The White House said President Donald Trump was notified about the attack Wednesday night as he flew aboard Air Force One from Las Vegas to Washington.
Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad are putting together a 5,000-strong G5 Sahel force to fight the growing threat from extremists in the vast Sahel region. The first units are expected to deploy in October and all battalions should be on the ground by March 2018.
The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution in June welcoming the deployment, but at U.S. insistence it did not include any possibility of U.N. financing for the force.
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The countries have been pressing the international community to help funding and in equipping troops and ensuring their mobility and help with logistics, communications and protection in the field.
That force will operate in the region along with a 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, which has become the deadliest in the world for U.N. peacekeepers, and France's 5,000-strong Barkhane military operation, its largest overseas mission.