American policy in Syria has always been bizarre. Israel and Saudi Arabia (two of our claimed allies) wanted Assad gone. We trained and armed (at great expense to we the taxpayers) opposition groups that gravitated to ISIS. We sent ground military forces there to train opposition groups. The CIA did the same. CIA forces engaged in direct combat with US Army forces. It’s a mess. A mess caused by us acting as a “for hire” military for our allies.
Russian Lieutenant-General (two stars) Valery Asapov, one of the senior Russian military advisers working on the ground in Syria, was fatally wounded at a command outpost manned by Syrian troops while assisting commanders in the liberation of the city of Deir al-Zor. So far, he is the highest-ranking Russian officer to be killed in the Syrian campaign.
According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, the death of the general is the price Russia was forced to pay for America’s hypocritical policy. The deputy minister said Moscow wants Washington’s statements on fighting terrorism not to be at odds with its actions on the ground.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has accused the United States of supplying Syrian terrorists with sensitive information that allegedly allowed them to surround a detachment of Russian military police on September 18. According to the officials, the US leaked the data in order to impede an offensive by the Russian-supported Syrian troops in Deir ez-Zor. Read more here.