happened in a factory and abbas was strong enough to knock down buildings as you can see. imagine what it did to cars and people inside the buildings. still under investigation clearly the cleanup and recovery effort has a long way to go. the cleanup continues in egypt were major investigation manhunt is underway to find those responsible for the deadliest terror attack in modern egyptian history. survivors giving horrific accounts of the attack that took the life of over 300 worshipers including more than 20 children at a mosque in the peninsula friday. connell power in jerusalem. kristen, learning more about what is the motivation and the reason this mosque in a small say in a desert town and why he was targeted according to village elders, and this is the mosque is important because the muslims we pride if there are by far the most strain of islam are
october 3 and continued the next day. officials tell fox the team was not hunting a high value target as some have reported. but instead, they were asked to collect information when they meet with village elders. when the meeting went longer than expected, it s believed that someone tipped off the 50 fighters that attacked the u.s. team on their return to base. general dunford says iraq has not left syria in large numbers but they have looking for a new home. small numbers of isis leaders are attempting to leverage local insurgencies. in africa, a number of local insurgencies that rebranded themselves and pledge allegiance to isis over the last year. dana white and lieutenant general frank mckenzie are giving a press briefing right now. we ll update you with new information. shepard: thanks, jennifer.
certainly that s one of the reasons why there are american soldiers on the ground here. just a few house from where i m standing is where that deadly ambush took place, jake. and that is an area on the border of mali where you have these very fluid militant groups moving in and out across the borders engaging in these kinds of attacks. one of the big questions right now, jake, is whether there was some kind of intelligence failure that sent these american soldiers into harm s way and what was supposed to be a routine mission which seemed to not a very high level of threat against these soldiers. as jim described there, they ended up in a massive fire fight. jim, what more are you learning about the nature of this mission to gather intelligence on a high-value isis terrorist in the region? reporter: these teams go out all the time to survey the scene, often to meet with local leaders, village elders, et cetera. on this particular trip, they were asked to stop in an encampment where
altered their mission to alter a senior isis official. reporter: the special forces thought that contact with the enemy was unlikely. but according to two military officials, it s elite special forces changed their mission in the field from reconnaissance to pursuit of a suspected isis recruiter. they spent the night camped out still looking for their target. in the morning, they met with village elders were they suspect they were intentionally delayed. they retreated to their outpost. and waited an hour before calling for support minutes later a drone for surveillance arrived. it continues into the evening where they were evacuated by a french helicopter. and later the dead were loaded on to an american helicopter. but sergeant s la david johnson s body was missing. our thanks to hans nichols for that report.
the exact circumstances of how he became separated from his unit. the entire team, led by green berets, has been interviewed about when they last saw johnson. the u.s. team had stopped in a town on the niger/mali border to pick up supplies, including food and water and then they met with village elders. investigators believe the ambush may have begun when the u.s. soldiers were back in their vehicles, possibly even driving. as those killed are laid to rest, defense secretary james mattis on capitol hill briefed senator john mccain one day after he threatened subpoenas if the pentagon doesn t start telling congress what it knows. i felt that we were not getting a sufficient amount of information, and we are clearing a lot of that up now.