Breaking News: Widespread failures led to the deaths of 4 U.S. soldiers on a secretive mission in Niger. But a military inquiry did not assign direct blame.

A long-awaited Defense Department investigation of a Special Forces mission in Niger last fall found widespread problems across all levels of the military operation, but concludes that “no single failure or deficiency” led to the deaths of four American soldiers who were among a team of Green Berets ambushed by fighters aligned with the Islamic State.

Even as it found “individual, organizational and institutional” mistakes, the investigation also revealed heroic efforts by a small team that was battered and outnumbered as it braced to take a last stand against a barrage of heavy machine gunfire and mortar rounds.

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