ambassador to niger. she told us more about the meeting between the us state department official, victoria nuland and the coup leaders. my understanding was that the acting deputy secretary left the door open for continued discussions and that basically the united states, in what i considered a rare move, offered its good offices to try to help move towards a diplomatic solution. that would be my interpretation of that experience. why do i think this first encounter with the acting head of this junta was not more compliant or didn t seem to be all embracing? i think it is because it is the first encounter. i also got the impression from reports i ve heard that may be the deputy secretary really did not see the whole junta, so i m not sure if there is still unity within that group right now. 0ur africa correspondent, catherine bieru hanga, has more.
for the nigerien people and the worse it is for mohamed bazoum only was it is for this little coup group as well. the real hostages in this situation are of course president bazoum and his family and the nigerien people. and the military, all the military, notjust the little group that appear on television, but the rank and file or to see that, and i think that s also now what the leadership at ecowas is conscious of. leadership at ecowas is conscious of. bisa williams former us conscious of. bisa williams former us ambassador- conscious of. bisa williams former us ambassador to i conscious of. bisa williams - former us ambassador to niger, thank you so much for being with us. ., , ., ~ with us. you re welcome. thank ou. ukraine says at least five people have been killed by russian missile strikes in the country s east. it s happened in the eastern town of pokrovsk in the donetsk region. more than 30 have also been injured in the attack. these are the latest pictures we have, as
it comes after the expiry of a sunday deadline from west african regional bloc, ecowas, which demanded the coup be reversed. the group now plans to hold an emergency summit on thursday. meanwhile, the united states is suspending more than $100 million in aid to niger. but officials insist there s still time to solve the crisis. the window of opportunity is definitely still open. we believe that the junta should step aside and allow president bazoum to resume his duties today, tomorrow, anytime in the near future. i don t want to put an assessment on when that window would be closed, other than to say that using diplomacy to achieve this objective is our top priority with respect to niger. bisa williams is a former us ambassador to niger. she told us more about the meeting between the us state department official victoria nuland and the coup leaders.
include that, as soon as it was realized that 25-year-old sergeant la david johnson was miss i missing the search started immediately. they want the public to know dozens more u.s. troops were moved into the capital to be ready. some of them did go into the field. in terms of the investigation itself, we know all members of the team is there been interviewed. there s also something new out of the state department today. there was beginning in the los angeles times that is viewed by some u.s. officials that the u.s. ambassador to niger had been pushing back or was resistant to u.s. military requests for more support, more equipment, more medical support. the state department is flat out denying that any requests were
constitutional authority of whether or not we want to authorize this operation through the appropriations process. senator lindsey graham addressing the need for oversight committees. before that, secretary mattis briefed senate armed services committee chairman john mccain on what we know and presumably all the things we still dont know about the ambush in niger. there are still gaps in the story and the white house refuses to fill them in until the story is complete. mattis visit is the culmination of several frustrating days on the part of the senator who has been vocal about the lack of communication from the pentagon and white house. a short time ago, he and mattis addressed that on camera. let me just close by saying, the secretary and i have had a 20-year relationship. we have had our problems and issues. i m proud to work with him and i m proud of the work that he s doing, and we will continue these regular meetings so that