U.S forces were caught off guard when a Guinean colonel they trained turned out to be the mastermind behind the country’s recent coup and is now the leader of the West African nation.
Col. Mamady Doumbouya has declared himself the new leader of Guinea after he led special forces into the presidential palace and deposed the country’s 83-year-old president, Alpha Condé, on September 5.
He is said to have slipped away to mount the coup early Sunday, raising suspicions he did so while his US instructors were asleep. They had been working with Doumbouya and other Guinean service personnel to train them in counterterrorism techniques, and to help them prop up their civilian government.
Doumbouya, once a close ally to Condé, is a familiar figure to American forces, who have been in the country since July to train a group of about 100 Special Forces members led by the Colonel and have worked with him for years.
Due to the timing and the close relationship with the Colonel the current situation has been an ’embarrassment’ for the Pentagon, the Times reported. U.S. officials have even had to clarify that the U.S. did not have previous knowledge or any involvement in the coup.
