Three US Green Berets were killed and two others were wounded in southwest Niger near the Mali-Niger border when a joint US-Nigerien patrol was attacked Wednesday.
The initial indications are the Green Berets were ambushed by up to 50 fighters who are thought to be affiliated with ISIS.US Africa Command, which oversees military operations in Africa, issued a statement Thursday saying the two wounded US service members were "evacuated in stable condition to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany."
It was the French military Super Puma helicopters that evacuated the wounded Americans along with those killed in action while also providing covering fire.
The attack occurred approximately 200 kilometers north of the country's capital, Niamey, in southwest Niger, according to the statement from Africa Command.

The government of Nigeria has announced the award of a $5.8 billion contract to build what will be the largest power plant in the country.The 3,050-megawatt Mambila hydroelectric power project in the state of Taraba will be delivered by a consortium of Chinese state-owned construction firms.The megaproject will feature four dams between 50 and 150 meters tall, and take six years to complete, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, told reporters in Abuja.
The Chinese Export-Import Bank will finance 85% of the development, with the Nigerian government contributing 15%.
Minister Fashola claimed the project will deliver far-reaching benefits.
"(Mambila) will have a transformational effect on all of Nigeria's socio-economic development," he said through a government spokesman, "It will have considerable positive impact on electricity supply nationwide, productivity, employment, tourism, technology transfer, rural development, irrigation, agriculture and food production."

The Mambila Plateau in Taraba state.

SA gunmen shoot dead family
Five people from the same family have been shot and killed in Mariannhill near Pinetown, in South Africa's troubled coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal.
Police said unknown gunmen opened fire at the family’s home last night at around midnight.
Four men were killed at the scene and a woman later died in hospital.
Capt Nqobile Gwala said: “We have opened five counts of murder for further investigation. The motive for the murders is still unknown.
“This is the second attack this week following the killing of eight people in Matimatolo.”
On Tuesday, gunmen entered two homes next to each other in Matimatolo village near Greytown.
Capt Gwala appealed to community members to assist the police and urged them “not to take matters into their own hands”.
KwaZulu-Natal has experienced a spate of political killings in recent months but it is not entirely clear whether these latest killings are linked to politics.

58 people are accounted dead and over 200 injured in what is said to be the worst mass shooting of modern times. A gunman fires into a crowd of country music concert attenders from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The man, identified as Steven Paddock, is believed to have then killed himself.