The initial reports had the Americans in the back of a truck.
That’s not a Special Forces patrol.
Modern warfare is being fought largely from pickup trucks. Walking is way too dangerous in a place like this. They would be surrounded by jihadis in trucks with heavy weapons very quickly. You can’t fight effectively with only foot carried weapons on the 2017 battlefield. Jihadis all have heavy machine guns and lots of RPG’s, recoilless guns and even guided anti-tank missiles. They have tens of thousands of those. They have night vision, modern communications equipment and drones. There are no borders in the North African jihad. Any weapon that Libya had in its arsenal is available to jihadists in Niger.
Forget about Hollywood fantasies of invisible ninja special forces soldiers. These kinds of patrols involved contact with local people.