Reports from Syria of U.S. military engagement with Russian troops
By The Wayne Madsen Report
Reports have reached WMR of possible combat between U.S. Special Forces and Russian troops in northeastern Syria. The situation is so dire, some U.S. Special Forces personnel have broken operational security, or "OPSEC," to send electronic messages to their next-of-kin in the United States that they are currently deployed in Syria and may never again see their loved ones. It should be emphasized that these U.S. Special Forces personnel -- Army, Marine Corps, and Navy -- have never before revealed to their families where they are currently engaged in combat.
In a statement from Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov blamed the United States for the recent combat death in Syria of Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov. The general was killed recently in mortar shelling carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), near the besieged Euphrates River town of Deir Az Zor. Asapov, a military adviser to the Syrian government, was killed at a Syrian Army command field station while directing troops fighting to liberate Deir Az Zor from ISIL.
Reports from the combat zone in northeastern Syria suggest that ISIL and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Front (SDF) have joined forces in fighting against Syrian government forces and their Russian allies. WMR's information from U.S. Special Forces sources indicates that American troops have engaged Russian, Syrian, and Iranian troops on behalf of ISIL and its SDF partners. One communication indicated that if any U.S. Special Forces personnel are killed in combat, the Pentagon will inform the next-of-kin that they were not killed in Syria, but died elsewhere. It has long been Pentagon policy to claim that Special Forces troops who are killed on covert missions died while on "training missions" far from the actual combat zones.
Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov killed in Syria combat. Russia blames U.S. for his death as U.S. Special Forces in Syria break OPSEC to warn of U.S.-Russian combat engagement
Asapov is not the only Russian military member who has been killed in Syria at the hands of U.S.-linked jihadist forces. The Russian government has not disclosed the total number of Russian killed-in-action but some estimates have the total as being over 30.
