WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee has temporarily blocked the promotion of one of the top Special Forces officers involved in the fatal Oct. 4, 2017, ambush in Niger, American officials said Friday. The attack resulted in four American deaths and exposed the U.S. military’s shortcomings in western Africa.

Col. Bradley D. Moses, the officer in charge of the Third Special Forces Group at the time of the attack, is the only officer in his unit involved in the episode to escape some form of punishment. His subordinates, all more junior officers, have been punished.

Colonel Moses was initially slated to be promoted to brigadier general after leaving his current assignment in Afghanistan. But at the request of members of the Senate, Colonel Moses, was removed from the initial list.

In the past, some officers were taken off the list only to be promoted months later, leaving Colonel Moses’s future unclear. On Congress’s website, he is listed as being “partitioned.”