U.S. Military Battle with Possible Russian Mercenaries

By Dave Majumdar,The National Interest

The Pentagon is reiterating that a battle in Syria that allegedly left some number of Russian mercenaries dead was purely an act of self-defense on the part of U.S. forces. Indeed, the Pentagon still does not know exactly who it is that American forces targeted during their retaliatory strike on Feb. 7.

“Our strikes were done out of self-defense,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Dana W. White told reporters on Feb. 22. “We were very clear about that. We saw that group moving towards us. We still don’t know, and I won’t speculate, about the intentions or the composition of that group.”

White reiterated that the United States did everything it could do ensure that no Russian forces got caught in the crossfire in Syria. “What I can tell you is that we used our deconfliction phone line, and we used it before, during and after the strike,” White said. “And we were assured by the Russians that there were no Russians involved. And so those are all of the details that I have…That was purely out of self-defense.”

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The Pentagon statement contradicts a recent Bloomberg report [6] that suggested that the White House would attempt to showcase the recent battle as an example of the Trump Administration’s tough stance on Russia. A source told Bloomberg that the “Trump administration is considering citing the deaths of scores of Russian mercenaries in a Feb. 7 battle with U.S.-backed forces in Syria as evidence of the president’s tough stance toward the Kremlin.”