Details shed on U.S., Russia clash in Syria

WASHINGTON — The artillery barrage was so intense that the U.S. 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.

The details of the Feb. 7 firefight were gleaned from interviews and documents newly obtained by the New York Times. They provide the Pentagon’s first public on-the-ground accounting of one of the single bloodiest battles the U.S. military has faced in Syria since deploying to fight the Islamic State.

The firefight was described by the Pentagon as an act of self-defense against a unit of pro-Syrian government forces. In interviews, U.S. military officials said they had watched hundreds of approaching rival troops, vehicles and artillery pieces in the week leading up to the attack.

The prospect of Russian military forces and U.S. troops colliding has been feared as the Cold War adversaries take opposing sides in Syria’s 7-year-old civil war.

Commanders of the rival militaries had long steered clear of the other by speaking through often-used deconfliction telephone lines. In the days leading up to the attack, and on opposite sides of the Euphrates River, Russia and the United States were backing separate offensives against the Islamic State in Syria’s oil-rich Deir el-Zour province, which borders Iraq.

U.S. military officials repeatedly warned about the growing mass of troops. But Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river — even though U.S. surveillance equipment monitoring radio transmissions had revealed the ground force was speaking in Russian.

The documents described the fighters as a “proregime force,” loyal to President Bashar Assad of Syria. It included some Syrian government soldiers and militias, but U.S. military and intelligence officials have said a majority were private Russian paramilitary mercenaries — and most likely a part of the Wagner Group, a company often used by the Kremlin to carry out objectives that officials do not want to be connected to the Russian government. “The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told senators in testimony last month. He said he directed Gen. JosephDunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “for the force, then, to be annihilated.” “And it was.” A team of about 30 Delta Force soldiers and Rangers from the Joint Special Operations Command were working alongside Kurdish and Arab forces at an outpost near the city of Deir el-Zour. Roughly 20 miles away, at a base known as a mission support site, a Green Berets and a platoon of infantry Marines stared at their computers, watching drone feeds and passing information to the Americans at the gas plant about the gathering fighters.

At 3 p.m., the Syrian force began edging toward the plant. By early evening, more than 500 troops and 27 vehicles had amassed.

In the U.S. air operations center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and at the Pentagon, military officers and intelligence analysts watched the scene unfold. Commanders briefed pilots and ground crews.

Back at the mission support site, the Green Berets and Marines were preparing a small reaction force in case they were needed at the Conoco plant.

At 8:30 p.m., three Russian-made T-72 tanks moved within a mile of the plant. Bracing for an attack, the Green Berets prepared to launch the reaction force.

At the outpost, U.S. soldiers watched a column of tanks and other armored vehicles turn and drive toward them around 10 p.m. A half-hour later, the Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces struck.

The outpost was hit with a mixture of tank fire, large artillery and mortar rounds, the documents show. The U.S. commandos fired anti-tank missiles and machine guns at the armored vehicles. For the first 15 minutes, U.S. military officials called their Russian counterparts and urged them to stop the attack. When that failed, U.S. troops fired warning shots. Still the troops advanced.

U.S. warplanes arrived in waves. For the next three hours, U.S. officials said, scores of strikes pummeled enemy troops, tanks and other vehicles.

At 1 a.m., with the artillery fire dwindling, the team of Marines and Green Berets pulled up to the outpost and began firing.

The U.S. troops on the ground, now roughly 40, braced their defenses as the mercenaries left their vehicles and headed toward the outpost on foot.

A few of the commandos, including Air Force combat controllers, worked the radios to direct the next fleet of bombers. At least one Marine exposed himself to fire as he used a missile guidance computer to find targets and pass them on to the commandos calling in the airstrikes.

An hour later, the enemy fighters had started to retreat and the U.S. troops stopped firing. From their outpost, the commandos watched the mercenaries and Syrian fighters return to collect their dead. The small team of U.S. troops was not harmed. One allied Syrian fighter was wounded. Questions remain about exactly who the Russian mercenaries were, and why they attacked.

U.S. intelligence officials say that the Wagner Group, known by the nickname of the retired Russian officer who leads it, is in Syria to seize oil and gas fields and protect them on behalf of the Assad government. The mercenaries earn of a share of the production proceeds from the oil fields they reclaim, officials said.

The mercenaries loosely coordinate with the Russian military in Syria, although Wagner’s leaders have reportedly received awards in the Kremlin, and its mercenaries are trained at the Russian Defense Ministry’s bases.

Russian government forces in Syria maintain they were not involved in the battle. But in recent weeks, according to U.S. military officials, they have jammed the communications of smaller U.S. drones and gunships such as the type used in the attack.

“Right now in Syria, we’re in the most aggressive E.W. environment on the planet from our adversaries,” Gen. Tony Thomas, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said recently, referring to electronic warfare. “They’re testing us every day.”