burning. we also learned that one of the military aircraft that has been fighting these fires crashed in the mainland of greece today. a 34-year-old and 27-year-old pilot aboard that airplane now dead. josh, take care. thank you for that. now to west africa and our nbc news exclusive look at a new and urgent war on terror. courtney kube is in niger. you got an inside look at the work by the special forces there. what did you see? reporter: yeah, that s right. we had a really rare opportunity to see two different pieces of the u.s. military mission here in west africa. you mentioned we re in niger. here we were able to see u.s. military special operations forces who were training the nigerien special operators here. and they have two main threats. one is an al qaeda affiliate jnim, but the other is an isis
him to earn every favor that he got. he never wanted you to think he was taking something for free or that he took any help for granted. and he was also committed to helping other afghans that helped us as well. those people were his friends even if he didn t know them. so he was always doing whatever he could to help the evacuation effort for people that he felt were, you know, his compatriots, the afghans that helped the u.s. military mission in afghanistan. pete: man, i know guys like him whether it s abdul, guys i served with in afghanistan and iraq who were ledge e jendz, you re right. legends. you couldn t do your job without them. you don t realize how difficult it is to come to the united states, restart a life with your wife and kids. how is his family doing, colonel, do you know? i ve had some contact with them through a family friend because the wife doesn t speak english. and they re making it,
and dod face during the evacuation. the report also says, quote, the decisions of both president trump and president biden to end the u.s. military mission in afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the afghan government and its security. report goes onto say during both administrations there was insufficient senior level consideration of worse case scenarios and how quickly those might follow. however, the deadly two week u.s. military evacuation took place under the biden administration in august of 2021. crowds of people desperate to escape the country. some were trampled. a botched u.s. drone strike killed ten innocent civilians, including seven children and 13 u.s. service member were kill in a suicide bombing. despite the deadly violence and at the state department s assessment of the mayhem, during a press conference president
underway. u.s. tomahawk cruise missiles delivered the first blows, hitting military targets near the capital city of kabul. it was a righteous war. we had every reason to go to afghanistan. we gave the taliban so many opportunities to give bin laden up and they refused. on my orders, the united states military has begun strikes against al-qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the taliban regime in afghanistan. these carefully-targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations. around the world, there was enormous support for the war in afghanistan. there was a sense that osama bin laden and al-qaeda had attacked not just the united states but the security of the global community. the u.s. military mission to overthrow the taliban was very swift. it took only about six weeks to force the taliban out of kabul. toppling the taliban wasn t that difficult.
including the same unit that killed osama bin laden, stage another daring raid, this time on mission to rescue hostages from pirates in somalia. tears on both sides of the aisle. congress bids an emotional farewell and gets an inspirational message. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. but first this just coming in. we re seeing a tight race, a very tight race here in florida. that makes tomorrow night s cnn republican presidential debate potentially all the more important as the candidates try to make an impact. the new cnn/ time /orcp poll shows a virtual tie. ging r. has near will you doubled his support here, while romney has slipped. but that big jump by gingrich may not snell tell the whole story. there s another trend developing, and there s lots to explore. let s getting right to our chief political analyst gloria borger and mike all crowley of time magazine. on the face of it, it looks like a tie, but there s other trends developing. right, i thi