Mountari said the team of 12 U.S. Special Forces soldiers and 30 Nigerian troops had been "right up to the Mali border and had neutralized some bandits" just before the ambush took place. He declined to give further details. The U.S. military has been adamant that the Oct. 3-4 mission was not intended to involve contact with enemy forces. Mountari said: "They (U.S.-Nigerien contingent) came back to Niger, they greeted the population, they gathered intelligence and it was inside the country, when they didn't expect anything, that the attack happened."

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Two Pakistani officials say a suspected U.S. drone strike has targeted a compound in a northwestern tribal region along the Afghan border, killing three suspected militants. The officials said two suspects were also wounded in Friday's strike on a border village in the Kurram tribal region. If confirmed, it would be the first U.S. drone strike on Pakistan since President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief media. The officials said apparently Afghan Taliban, including member Abdul Salam, were targeted but it was unclear whether they were present at the time. Salam is a relative of Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as ambassador to Pakistan during the Taliban's rule.

In the deadliest attack against Indian forces in more than a decade, militants sneaked into an army encampment in the disputed territory of Kashmir early Sunday and opened fire on sleeping soldiers, killing at least 17 and wounding dozens. The four assailants, who also threw grenades that caused tents and temporary shelters to catch fire at the army brigade headquarters at Uri, were killed in a gun battle with security forces that lasted six hours, authorities said. Indian officials blamed the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack, saying it had recovered weapons from the assailants that carried Pakistani markings. Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the director of military operations, said he contacted his Pakistani counterpart to convey "serious concerns." Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh was more pointed, saying on Twitter: "Pakistan is a terrorist state, and it should be identified and isolated as such."

Abu Sayyaf extremists on Saturday freed a Norwegian man kidnapped a year ago in the southern Philippines with two Canadians who were later beheaded and a Filipino woman who has been released by the ransom-seeking militants, officials said. Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed in Patikul town in Sulu province and was eventually secured by rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the government and helped negotiate his release, Philippine government officials said. Sekkingstad, held in jungle captivity since being kidnapped last September, was to stay overnight at the house of Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari in Sulu and then be flown to the southern city of Davao on Sunday to meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said Jesus Dureza, who advises Duterte on peace talks with insurgent groups. A plan to fly the freed hostage out of Sulu, a jungle-clad Muslim region about 590 miles south of Manila, on Saturday was scrapped because of bad weather, Dureza said. Dureza said that when he spoke on the phone with Sekkingstad, the Norwegian expressed his gratitude to Duterte.

Drone attacks killed eight men suspected of belonging to al Qaeda in southern Yemen on Saturday night, local residents said, as a U.S. campaign against the militant group goes on amid a wider civil war in the country. Two missiles hit the fighters who had gathered in courtyards in the villages of al-Hudhn and Naqeel al-Hayala, residents from the southern coastal province of Abyan told Reuters by phone. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken advantage of a war pitting the Iran-allied Houthis against forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to grab territory and operate more openly. The group has carried out attacks against the Yemeni state for years, plotted to blow up U.S.-bound airliners and claimed responsibility for the January 2015 attack in Paris on a French magazine that killed 12 people. The United States has kept up a drone campaign against the militants, although it evacuated the last of its military and intelligence personnel from Yemen in March last year.