Outside the Wire: How U.S. Special Operations Troops Secretly Help Foreign Forces Target Terrorists by Souad Mekhennet and Missy Ryan, Washington Post

… The operation illustrates the central but little-known role that U.S. Special Operations troops can play in helping foreign forces plan and execute deadly missions against militant targets.

In recent years, U.S. forces have provided this kind of close operational support — a range of activities including what’s known in military parlance as “combat advising” or “accompany” and “enabling” assistance — in a growing list of countries beyond the active battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, including Uganda, Mauritania, Kenya, Colombia, the Philippines and Tunisia.

Those activities have taken on greater importance as the Obama administration has scaled back the direct combat role of U.S. troops overseas and instead sought to empower local forces to manage extremist threats.

At the same time, the strategy, while low-risk to Americans, has done little to change the overall security picture in countries with deep political and economic problems. It is an approach that some analysts say may provide the partner forces — and the United States — with a false sense of security while having little lasting effect…

Read on.