joining me for more on the fight against islamic militants in this part of africa, is peter pham. he's the director of the atlantic council's africa program. peter, welcome back to the program. we were just talking about this is the first set of u.s. casualties in this region. tell us about the mission there. what are the u.s. troops and their allies doing? >> well, we have for several years now had numbers, low, several hundred u.s. personnel in niger doing two things primarily, one operating a drone base in the capital of niger and building another drone base in the center of the country which will be able to reach surveillance into mali and southern libya. and the other mission has been training the nigerian forces to stand up and fight these militants, as you mentioned from both al-qaeda linked groups and islamic state linked groups that have been crossing in this region and increasingly carrying out violent attacks. >> woodruff: so they are there because-- who is the enemy there? >> well, various islamic extremists, roughly in two broad coalitions, one announced yus this past