At least 4 Russians killed in Syria in firefight with ISIS

A firefight pitting Syrian government troops and their Russian military advisers against Islamic State militants has left at least four Russians dead and several wounded, the Defense Min- istry in Moscow said Sunday.

The firefight occurred in the Deir el-Zour governorate, an oil-rich area of eastern Syria, after several mobile units of the Islamic State attacked a Syrian army artillery battery, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted the ministry as saying in a statement.

The fighting lasted about an hour, resulting in the deaths of 43 Islamic State fighters and in the destruc- tion of six all-terrain vehi- cles, the report said. Two Russians who had been help- ing to direct Syrian artillery fire were killed during the fighting, the report added, and two others died later as a result of wounds suffered during the battle.

A statement circulated on the Telegram messaging app by accounts affiliated with the Islamic State said that the attack occurred over- night Wednesday near the town of Mayadeen, and that it had killed 15 men fight- ing on behalf of the Syrian government, including an unspecified number of Russians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that mon- itors the war through con- tacts on the ground, put the Russian death toll at nine. The organization said two clashes in the area over the past five days had left 76 dead on the Syrian government side, including non-Syrians.

The Islamic State used to occupy wide swaths of east- ern Syria, including much of the city of Deir el-Zour, the province’s capital, and the city of Raqqa, which the jihadi group considered its capital. The militant group has since been driven from the main urban centers, however.

Still, the region remains a patchwork of armed forces controlling different pieces of territory, leading to frequent clashes and to fears of a larger conflagration over energy resources.

One of the largest such clashes, in February, involved Syrian army soldiers and Russian mercenaries who tried to seize a gas plant controlled mostly by Kurdish forces and their U.S. military advisers. The ensuing battle left scores of Russians dead.

At first, Russian officials said only four Russian citizens — but perhaps dozens more — had been killed; a Syrian officer said around 100 Syrian soldiers had died.

President Vladimir Putin deployed the Russian military to Syria in September 2015, in what he called an effort to fight the Islamic State on its own turf. Despite various statements by Putin’s government suggesting that the Russian military had completed its role in the area, it has become an essential pillar for the government of President Bashar Assad of Syria.