Sgt. La David Johnson (pictured) was killed last month during a gunfight in Niger
One of the four American soldiers killed in an deadly ambush in Niger last month may have first been abducted by Islamist militants.
Pentagon officials have not revealed how the body of Sgt. La David Johnson was separated from the rest his unit following a violent skirmish in the village of Tongo Tongo.
CBS News, however, may have uncovered new evidence that suggests that Johnson was taken by ISIS fighters while the soldiers stopped to get supplies.
Evidence of the battle still remain in the isolated community, with spent bullet casings and bushes splattered with blood doting the rural landscape.
One village elder told CBS News that the Islamist guerrillas lured the Americans into a trap and ambushed them with heavy artillery fire.
Adamou Bububaker said he saw the three US soldiers stripped naked and loaded into a truck belonging to the militants.
‘Two of the bodies were in the vehicle and another on the ground,’ he said.
New evidence and eyewitness testimony suggests that La David Johnson may have been kidnapped
Pentagon officials have not revealed how the body of Sgt. La David Johnson was separated from the rest his unit (Pictured: Sight of gunfight in Tongo Tongo, Niger)
Johnson’s body, however, was found two days later, about a half mile away from where the fighting took place. His hands had been bond together with rope.
According to CBS News, Nigerien military sources believe that ISIS militants attempted to abduct Johnson, shooting him later and dumping his body near a bush.
The Pentagon said the troops were in the area for a reconnaissance mission, but Nigerien military sources tell CBS News that the soldiers were there to take out a terrorist leader.
The exact nature of the operation remains unclear and a spokesperson for the Pentagon was not immediately available for comment.
Shortly after the operation became public, President Donald Trump fell into a row Johnson’s widow over the account of a phone call they shared shortly after her husband’ death in Niger.
Johnson’s body was found two days after the violent skirmish with his hands tied
‘He couldn’t remember my husband’s name,’ Myeshia Johnson said on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ program on October 23.
‘The only way he remembered my husband’s name was because he told me he had my husband’s report in front of him, and that’s when he actually said “La David”.’
‘I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name and that’s what hurt me most,’ she said.
The president quickly pounced on Twitter following Myeshia Johnson’s interview.
‘I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Army Specialist Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!’ he tweeted after the interview ended.
In the interview, Johnson also demanded answers for what happened to her husband, and why she hasn’t been allowed to look at his body yet.
Johnson says the Army first told her that her husband went missing on October 4 after coming under a ‘mass of gunfire’.
They returned a few days later and said that he had been killed in action, but didn’t go into further detail.
The couple met when they were just six years old, and have two children together – a two-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. The couple’s third child, a daughter, is due in January.
President Trump fell into a row with Johnson’s widow over the nature of a condolence call last month after news of his death became public