Friday, May 25, 2018

More Details Emerge On A 4-Hour Battle That Killed Hundreds Of Russian Mercenaries And Syrian Soldiers Against U.S. And Kurdish Forces In February

SBS/New York Times: How a four-hour battle between Russian mercenaries and US commandos unfolded

The details of the February 7 firefight were gleaned from interviews and documents newly obtained by The New York Times.

The artillery barrage was so intense that the US commandos dived into foxholes for protection, emerging covered in flying dirt and debris to fire back at a column of tanks advancing under the heavy shelling.

It was the opening salvo in a nearly four-hour assault in February by around 500 pro-Syrian government forces — including Russian mercenaries — that threatened to inflame already simmering tensions between Washington and Moscow.

In the end, 200 to 300 of the attacking fighters were killed. The others retreated under merciless airstrikes from the United States, returning later to retrieve their battlefield dead. None of the Americans at the small outpost in eastern Syria — about 40 by the end of the firefight — were harmed.

Read more ....

Update #1: U.S. Attacks That Killed 'Hundreds' of Russians and Syrians Detailed in New Report (Newsweek)
Update #2: About 40 US soldiers held off hundreds of Russian mercenaries in a brutal firefight in Syria (Business Insider)

WNU Editor: A must read on what happens when a poorly planned mass assault against a U.S. Special Forces position that is supported by U.S. air strikes and artillery can do on an opposing force.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is reporting? Again the casualty report is iffy to say the least, but it is a little more information than what has been said before. The one interesting nugget of this entire "report" was the hostile force employed a howitzer(s).
JH

Anonymous said...

perhaps you should become a battlefield journalist and show the world how to do this sort of thing

Anonymous said...

Not much new in this story other than the stuff about how the Americans were watching the approaching attack force. The Russian high command had plausible deniability but callous of them to let their men and Syrian allies walk into an ambush. The Russian high command knew the Americans were on to the force and knew the firepower they had, yet didn't call them back.

Andrew Jackson said...

A day of glory!!!!!

fazman said...

Not their men

fazman said...

The self propelled artillery was reported long ago.

Anonymous said...

fazman,
Thanks.
JH

Anonymous said...

This piece of rubbish was translated into Russian and posted here - https://inosmi.ru/politic/20180524/242311660.html. Got almost 130K views. People are laughing their heads off because it's such a fairy tale. Anyone who've been in any sort of shoot out or under artillery fire will tell, that this "battle" timeline, mercenaries walking out of their vehicles after hours of air bombing, collecting corpses, Americans watching or driving around at night and etc is just not realistic. Pure BS. Such a poor level of journalism from The New York Times. It's a pity that they fell so low and these days they lack even a slightest signs of proffessionalism ((

Anonymous said...

I do not believe much of it either. Seems incredible that the battle would last as long as four hours if they were atacked with so much force. The crybabies in western Europe and US would retreats within 5 minutes.

Antitroll said...

Another bs manifested western story to make their raisin shrunken testes grow