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"These aren't our troops" shtick backfires.


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2018 Feb 11, 4:27pm   1,867 views  2 comments

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In Syria, Russian bad faith turns fatal

By David Ignatius

SHADDADI, Syria — This week’s fatal collision between U.S. and Russian proxy forces in Syria has many ominous portents. But to hear the Syrian Kurdish commander who was overseeing the battle describe it, this is above all a tale of Russian bad faith, which U.S. officials see as a chronic problem in resolving the Syrian war.

Gen. Hassan, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in this region, points to a spot on the map just east of Deir al-Zour, about 50 miles southwest of here, where he says tanks and artillery backing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad began advancing Wednesday night toward the headquarters occupied by his forces and their advisers from U.S. Special Operations forces. (Hassan, like some other senior Kurdish commanders, didn’t give his full name.)

Hassan says he had intelligence reports that the pro-regime attack was coming. So at 9:30 Wednesday night, about a half-hour before the assault began, he called his regular Russian liaison contact in Deir al-Zour — hoping to avoid a battle.

“We told them there is some movement, and we don’t like to … attack on this movement. They [the Russians] don’t accept our offer and denied, said there’s nothing happening,” Hassan said through an interpreter.
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U.S. commanders attempted a similar de-confliction. According to a Pentagon statement Thursday, “Coalition officials were in regular communication with Russian counterparts before, during and after” the attack. “Russian officials assured coalition officials they would not engage coalition forces in the vicinity,” the statement said.

The attack began about 10 p.m., Hassan said, with pro-regime advancing troops under a volley of tank and artillery shells that landed about 500 yards from the positions occupied by the SDF and the American soldiers. Hassan said the ground-attack force included some Russians, who he believed were mercenaries. (Russia officially doesn’t have ground troops fighting here.)

U.S. airpower responded to this threat to American troops with devastating firepower, from AC-130 ground-attack planes to armed drones. The Pentagon estimated that more than 100 were killed. Hassan indicated that the casualties included some Russians, apparently from the mercenaries fighting alongside pro-regime forces.
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Hassan said that as the carnage spread, the Russian liaison officer contacted him again, asking for a pause to collect the dead and wounded — from an attack he had earlier denied was coming. The Kurdish commander saw this as a breach of faith.

“We don’t trust Russia anymore,” Hassan said. When a reporter asked about the irony of the Russian officer denying the attack and then asking for a truce, Hassan responded: “It’s funny that a superpower doesn’t know what their forces are conducting on the ground.”
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How to add up the balance sheet? The U.S. military showed its overwhelming military dominance in the areas it controls in eastern Syria. Russian-backed forces paid dearly for their unprovoked and, it seems, deceitful attack.
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The Russian Defense Ministry issued a lame statement Thursday, claiming that the attackers were chasing Islamic State fighters. That’s nonsense, as the Russians surely knew. There are no Islamic State fighters left in that area, thanks to the U.S.-led coalition.
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Score one for American military power against Russia’s tactic of operating through deniable “Little Green Men.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/02/09/in-syria-russian-bad-faith-turns-fatal/?utm_term=.77753bacb7f3

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1   Y   2018 Feb 11, 7:45pm  

his hair is fucked...

HEYYOU says
David Ignatius-

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