The four American special forces killed fighting in Niger were ambushed by 50 ISIS terrorists after they were stalled by a village elder, a survivor of the attack has revealed.

The group of 12 American forces had accompanied 30 Nigerien forces to an area about 85 kilometers north of the capital Niamey on a routine reconnaissance mission on October 3, when a dramatic new order came through to kill or capture a top ISIS target, officials told ABC News.

They were never able to track down the target, but the convoy of 6-8 vehicles, which included three American, stopped at the remote village of Tongo Tongo after the long night of patrolling, at 11am the next day, a survivor of the attack said.

The meeting with the village, which is seen as supportive of ISIS, is a routine part of the Green Beret mission. But after the meeting, officials say village elders attempted to stall the troops from leaving.

The survivor, who has not been named, told ABC: 'Something was off'.

The four American special forces members, Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, Sgt. La David Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, (all pictured) killed fighting in Niger were ambushed by 50 ISIS terrorists, a survivor of the attack has revealed

The group of 12 American forces had accompanied 30 Nigerien forces to an area about 85 kilometers north of the capital Niamey on a routine reconnaissance mission on October 3 (pictured in a recreation on ABC News)

The American forces had visited Tongo Tongo village but were stalled from leaving by a village elder. Eventually the convoy of 6-8 vehicles, which included three American, were able to leave (pictured in an recreation on ABC)

But shortly after leaving, the group were ambushed. They began taking gunfire from a group of militants (pictured is the yellow bursts of gunfire in the recreation)

The US troops were forced to dismount from their vehicles and return fire (pictured in an NBC recreation)

The men were quickly surrounded by 50 armed militants (pictured in the recreation above) who opened fire on them with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns

Once they did leave, they were ambushed.

Militants attacked the American forces with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns from military vehicles.

The solders dismounted from their vehicles and began returning fire, but as it became clear they were outnumbered and outgunned, they got back in their trucks and retreated a mile before they were attacked again.

Officials say the Americans were trapped in a kill zone.

US forces waited more than an hour after the ambush to call for help, officials said. When they finally did, a drone was overhead within minutes.

Yet it took the troops an hour before they called for help. Within minutes of the call, a drone arrived overhead

But it was another hour after that before the French military jets arrived (pictured in the recreation)

French Mirage fighter jets arrived an hour after later and evacuated two injured troops and bodies of Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright.

But the body of Sgt. La David Johnson was not recovered for a further 48 hours.

The survivor told ABC that he saw Sgt. Johnson 'grabbing every weapon available to him to fight' and that he was 'a beast'.

Officials said that the two separate ambush sites could explain why Sgt. Johnson's body was found more than a mile from the other dead and injured troops.

It appears that the Green Berets and special forces did not have any drones overhead or surveillance during the meeting in a move which appears to have put themselves at risk in a bid to win the trust of local residents, officials said.

From left, Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, Sgt. La David Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright were killed in Niger when a joint patrol of American and Niger forces was ambushed by militants believed linked to ISIS

Soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment carried the remains of Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright at Dover Air Force Base on Oct. 5 – a day before Sgt. La David Johnson's body was located

The four American special forces killed fighting in Niger were ambushed by 50 ISIS terrorists after they were stalled by a village elder in Tongo Tongo, a survivor said

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed that taking risks was part of the team's jobs but asked: 'Are they taking risks that are unreasonable?...I don't have any reason to believe that,' NBC reports.

When asked why the team didn't ask for help for an hour into the attack, Gen. Dunford said he thought the special forces may have believed they had things under control.

'My judgment would be that that unit thought they could handle the situation without additional support,' Dunford said.

The French fighter planes did not drop bombs because they were not in radio contact with the US troops and did not want to hit them. However, the arrival of the jets did work to scare off the attackers.

Following the fatal ambush, a village chief in Tongo Tongo, Mounkaila Alassane, was reportedly arrested.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford took questions from reporters about the Niger operation during a briefing at the Pentagon on Monday, but had few answers

Dunford pledged that findings of a Pentagon investigation into the deaths of the four soldiers would be shared with their families first.

The Mayor of Tongo Tongo, Almou Hassane, told the Voice of America that villagers had intentionally delayed the American forces from leaving while the attackers assembled, adding that ISIS 'have never lacked accomplices among local populations.'

Subsequent surveillance footage of the time of the attack, which may have been gathered from a satellite after the incident, showed the militants preparing for the attack - pushing motorbikes out of the village until they were out of earshot and then riding them to the attack point.

While investigators now believe that the American forces may have been lured to the remote village by ISIS sympathizers, Gen. Dunford admitted that there are still many more questions that need answers.

Sgt. Johnson's widow in particular wanted to know why her husband had been separated from his teammates.

'I don't know how he got killed, where he got killed, anything,' she told ABC News. 'That's what I've been trying to find out since day one.'

'We owe you more information; more importantly, we owe the families of the fallen more information,' Dunford said.

Myeshia Johnson is pictured greeting her husband's casket at Dover Air Force Base on October 17

He called the raid that killed four U.S. soldiers evolved from a 'complex situation' that led to a 'difficult firefight.'

Independent of the military's investigation, the La David Johnson ordeal has become a major political dispute in the United States after President Donald Trump credited himself with doing more to honor the dead and console families than any of his predecessors.

Johnson's aunt then said Trump showed 'disrespect' to his family as he telephoned to extend condolences.

In an extraordinary White House briefing, John Kelly, the former Marine general who is Trump's chief of staff, shot back at Trump's critics on Thursday, and the president continued the criticism over the weekend.

Members of Congress are demanding answers almost three weeks after the ambush in a remote corner of Niger, where few Americans travel. Last week, Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, even threatened a subpoena to accelerate the flow of information from the administration.

Dunford defended the broader American mission in Niger.

He said U.S. forces have been in the country intermittently for more than two decades. Currently, some 800 U.S. service members are supporting a French-led mission to defeat the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram in West Africa.

Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who was in the car with Johnson when she received a call from President Trump, has been attacking him for days, saying he was insensitive

Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday the White House has not been forthcoming with details about the military's presence in Niger.

Graham and Schumer said they had been unaware of the large U.S. presence in the country and said Congress needs more information on what could become a long and open-ended involvement.

'I didn't know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,' Graham said on NBC's Meet the Press. 'This is an endless war without boundaries and no limitation on time and geography,' he added. 'You've got to tell us more and he is right to say that.'

In June Trump said in a letter to Congress that in Niger 'there are approximately 645 United States military personnel deployed' to support counterterrorism operations in the Lake Chad Basin Region.

Their mission is to counter the advances of a slew of jihadist movements across the continent, including Al-Shabaab in Somalia, affiliates of the Islamic State group in the Sahel region and Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Of the 8,000 special forces 'operators' deployed globally this year, more than 1,300 are in Africa, according to officials from the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida.

Mrs. Johnson (pictured), the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, said Monday that Trump couldn't remember her late husband's name during the condolence call

Trump tweeted minutes later that he had a 'very respectful conversation' and said Sgt. Johnson's name 'without hesitation!' – directly contradicting the widow

Another 5,000 or so are in the Middle East. In five years, the number of US commandos in Africa has tripled from only 450 in 2012.

Typically, the highly trained and well-armed commandos are grouped in teams of about a dozen, who work for two or three months as instructors to classes of about 300 soldiers from an African nation.

On any given day, the operators are deployed across about 20 nations, SOCOM said, though it did not provide a list of nations or the numbers of troops concerned.

Officially, the United States only has one military base in Africa - Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

But special forces outfits, including the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs and Marine and Air Force commandos, also use an air base at Moron in southern Spain for Africa operations.

And the United States has 'persistent facilities' in host countries, according to an AFRICOM official.