This is a true story, of failed decision making at the highest levels of the executive branch of the U.S. government. That failure resulted in the largest loss of life in Kenyan military history (the actual death toll is classified).

In the fall of 2015, elements of the U.S. intelligence community were gravely concerned with the intentions of an Al Qaida splinter group operating somewhere in East Africa. The problem was, they had no idea where the group was located.

Meet the two senior analysts selected to find the group; One named ‘Mikey’, a walking book of knowledge on African extremist groups. The other analyst, anonymous here, was known for his diverse skillset; particularly geospatial, imagery, and LIDAR analysis.

Together, they traveled to Africa with three goals: Find Al Qaida, track their movements, and develop a concept of operation to remove the threat. Assisting them were a team of operators and other specialists.

The Al Qaida group and their leaders, needles in a haystack, were found and tracked to the last day. The analysts regularly reported the groups activity to pentagon senior leadership, and to the executive office of the president of the United States.

In the final days, reporting that a large scale attack was imminent, the U.S. government made a calculated political decision and decided not to act.

On January 15, 2016, Kenyan defence forces were brutally attacked with overwhelming force. They were tied up, shot at point-blank range, burned alive, and butchered to death. Al Qaida ran off with a few hostages, because they could. The senior analysts watched the attack in real time, their hands tied by failed foreign policy.

Barack Obama, with ancestral roots in Kenya, was the sitting U.S. president. The attack was suppressed in the U.S. news media, although it was reported by select international news outlets.

Later, in a political clean-up effort, U.S. media reported that the Al Qaida group responsible for the atrocities had been brought to justice.

Those media reports were fabricated.