On Tuesday at around 1:45 a.m. local time, in southern Niger, US citizen named Philipe Nathan Walton was kidnapped by 6 men with AK-47s on motorbikes, per media. The armed kidnappers called his father, who lives about a mile away, and demanded ransom, a local official said.

1/
2/ It was unclear if the kidnappers were members of the Islamic State or another terrorist group, but there's always the risk that even if they weren't extremists, the kidnappers might sell a hostage to such a group. There are several foreigners being held hostage in Niger.
3/ The Pentagon then flew members of the US Navy's elite SEAL Team 6 to the region, a US official with knowledge of the operation tells @barbarastarrcnn.

Early this morning they conducted a hostage rescue operation to save Walton.
4/ Per @ChiefPentSpox: "This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation."

cnn.com/2020/10/31/pol…
5/ The official told Starr that the SEALs killed six of the seven captors. Looks like they were criminals motivated by money not extremist views.

@SecPompeo said "the hostage will be reunited with his family. We will never abandon any American taken hostage."

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jake Tapper

Jake Tapper Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @jaketapper

31 Oct
Some great Sean Connery movies I don’t see being discussed much on the twitter machine today that are also excellent ... TIME BANDITS
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (which takes place in Nuristan btw)
OUTLAND
Read 5 tweets
30 Oct
Since twitter has locked out the NYPost for violating rules that no longer stand as rules (but twitter won't revisit past enforcement decisions) the NY Post COULD end this standoff by deleting the tweets that broke the rules (thus unlocking its account) then tweet them out again
2/ I asked a twitter exec if this was possible, he said yes and it would end the whole thing. Probably take 15 seconds.
3/ And yes twitter could end this immediately as well given that these rules are no longer rules. I’m just suggesting a possible way to end this. ✌️
Read 5 tweets
28 Oct
New CNN national poll; interviews conducted October 23-26, 2020 by telephone with 1,005 adult Americans, including 886 likely voters

Among likely voters
54% Biden
42% Trump
Women
Biden 61%
Trump 37%

Men
Trump 48%
Biden 47%

Voters of Color
Biden 71%
Trump 24%

White voters
Trump 50%
Biden 48%
White voters with college degrees
Biden 58%
Trump 40%

White voters without four-year degrees
Trump 58%
Biden 40%

White women without degrees
Biden 49%
Trump 49%

White men without degrees
Trump 68%
Biden 30%
Read 8 tweets
27 Oct
Fascinating smear attempt by Trump campaign just now.

It begins a few days ago with Pope Francis's new encyclical, which contains a critique of modern politics.

irishnews.com/lifestyle/fait…
2/ Part of the Pope's speech:

"At times, in thinking of the future, we do well to ask ourselves, 'Why am I doing this?', 'What is my real aim?' For as time goes on, reflecting on the past, the questions will not be: 'How many people endorsed me?', 'How many voted for me?'"
3/ Joe Biden quoted the Pope in his speech just now.

And because they are who they are, the Trump campaign misleadingly clipped it to make this:

Read 6 tweets
27 Oct
Some folks have asked me to explain what’s going on with @twitter locking the @nypost twitter account:

1. Post posted that story on Hunter Biden which twitter determined at the time contained materials (emails and photos) that violated twitter rules.
2. Twitter says the specific twitter rules broken were ones that applied to the publication of hacked materials and personal information.

Twitter decided that also meant any tweets that directly included those materials or linked to them twitter required to be deleted.
3. Twitter locked accounts that tweeted those materials until they deleted those tweets after which they'd have access restored.

4. Then twitter *changed its ruling* about blocking those links.
Read 6 tweets
24 Oct
On this day in 2012, (via @Trumphop) Trump was on a tweet-storm demanding that President Obama release records to prove he was born in the U.S., pushing the racist lie that the nation's first black president wasn't born in the U.S.

2/ Not surprisingly, Trump found plenty of support in right-wing media for his racist nonsensical birtherism.

3/ It wasn't just that day. For months Trump posted videos, tweets and more trying to undermine the nation's first black president as not a "real" American.

Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!