Eli Lake, Bloomberg: Don't Be Fooled: Russia Attacked U.S. Troops in Syria
Mattis gave Putin "plausible deniability" for a military assault that went badly awry.
If you've been listening just to the Kremlin and the Pentagon, you probably didn't know that Russia attacked American forces and their allies in Syria last week, suffering heavy casualties.
Yes, all sides admit that there was an incident at a U.S. base in Deir Ezzor. And that elements of the Syrian regime and Shiite militias participated in the assault. The Pentagon and Kremlin both acknowledge that Russian "mercenaries" participated, too. But the line for now is that those contractors had gone rogue, and Moscow didn't know anything about it.
When reporters asked U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis about the incident, he called the whole thing perplexing. "I have no idea why they would attack there, the forces were known to be there, obviously the Russians knew," he said. "We have always known that there are elements in this very complex battle space that the Russians did not have, I would call it, control of."
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Update: Death of Military Contractors Illuminates Russia’s War by Proxy in Syria (Pavel Felgenhauer, RCD)
WNU Editor: I have doubts that Russian President Putin and his inner circle green-lighted an order to send Russian contractors into battle against U.S. advisers and their allies. Putin is focused on being re-elected in next month's Russian Presidential elections .... he is not focused on starting a war against the U.S. over Syria. But having said that .... someone did give that order, and I would love to know who gave it, especially on the Russian side.
