U.S. military rescues American citizen
held hostage in Nigeria
Washington Times,
by
Ben Wolfgang
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
10/31/2020 10:19:57 AM
U.S. special forces on Saturday carried out a daring raid in Nigeria to rescue Philip Walton, a 27-year-old American citizen taken hostage by armed gunmen earlier this week, Pentagon officials said.
Mr. Walton and his family live on a Niger farm near the border with Nigeria. He was reportedly being held for ransom after his abduction Oct. 26.
Defense Department officials offered little detail on the specifics of the mission but said that allies in Africa assisted with the operation. Officials also indicated that no ransom was paid to recover Mr. Walton.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 10/31/2020 10:34:14 AM (No. 590641)
You're playing with the big boys now...
10 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
DVC 10/31/2020 10:50:11 AM (No. 590659)
Another source identifies the spec ops men as SEAL Team 6....whether that is factual, who knows. There are more teams that that, not all operations are SEALs, let alone DevGru.
From another article:
"The kidnappers seized 27-year-old Philip Walton, who kept camels, sheep and poultry and grew mango trees near the border with Nigeria,"
Hmm. Not where I would choose to settle down, but there is no accounting for people's choices in life.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
hershey 10/31/2020 10:53:32 AM (No. 590666)
Why would a US citizen want to stay in those he double l holes? There isn't enough money to pay me to do that...
12 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 10/31/2020 10:56:50 AM (No. 590672)
I guess Walton is one of the liberals who believes American citizenship is some kind of magic shield that prevents crime like this from happening to you. I don't have a lot of sympathy for expats who live in places like this, that force Americans to come and bail them out.
13 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
msjena 10/31/2020 10:57:46 AM (No. 590674)
He's a lucky man, because if Biden were in charge, he would have been sold to Islamist militants and forgotten.
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 10/31/2020 11:04:42 AM (No. 590685)
#3, I once had dinner with Robert Baer, a retired CIA agent who had been assigned to Beirut. He had a lot of interesting stories. He worked as a cab driver for several years, and everyone knew he was an American, although he spoke Arabic well, and just drove a cab. When the locals asked why he was there, he told me his reply was "Because I have always loved Beirut". Amazingly, it worked. Thinking about it later, it plays on the person's likely love of their home city/country to flatter them and say you prefer it over all other places, too, no matter how unlikely a story it is for most Americans. He wasn't trying to convince Americans. The many thing that I learned was that often agents are known to be Americans, but working in ordinary jobs which don't attract a lot of attention.
I tend to doubt that Mr. Walton was a CIA agent because of brother, sister and children - it doesn't seem smart or likely for him to be an agent. But who knows? Lots of coast watchers in the Solomons in WW2 were Brits or Dutch who had chosen to live there in that absolute middle of nowhere among the natives and when the war came, they were willing to pass on info to American forces on ship, aircraft and troop movements that they observed. Some people like to live in remote, obscure places.
9 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Starboard_side 10/31/2020 11:30:22 AM (No. 590719)
This is good news, which means it won't be broadcast on TV news programs for fear it helps Trump.
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
John C 10/31/2020 11:31:18 AM (No. 590720)
Interesting but I really would like to know how many of the gang have now gone to meet there maker.
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 10/31/2020 11:56:22 AM (No. 590749)
#8, probably all of them.
8 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 10/31/2020 2:23:39 PM (No. 590916)
Why surely they wouldn't kill them, #9. Maybe they just shot them in the leg as Biden suggests.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Strike3 10/31/2020 3:11:07 PM (No. 590949)
It seems that every person who gets captured in the third world, stuck on a mountain or lost in a cave warrants multiple people risking their lives to rescue them. I think I'll climb into my 13-foot sailboat and cross the Pacific now. See you in a few months.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 11/1/2020 1:32:18 AM (No. 591348)
#11, Americans kidnapped in foreign countries, especially where there is no significant and capable local law enforcement to help them, will generally be rescued by the US military.
I find that comforting, since I have traveled a few out of the way places in small, odd little countries. Very familiar with small towns in Georgia and Armenia, India, some rural places in Ukraine and some very rural parts of Russia, too. US troops aren't going to be operating in Russia for certain, probably not in Ukraine, but Armenia and Georgia.....who knows. Fortunately, I never ran into any problems in these places.
0 people like this.
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