US and Russian troops nearly come to blows in the midst of civil war in Syria

US Marines patrol near the American military base Al-Tanf on the border with Syria Photo: Shutterstock

The United States and Russia have moved closer to direct military clash in Syria after the Russians threatened a US special forces base in the midst of a civil war, this could be exposed.

The US command threatened to retaliate with military force after the Russians ordered US special forces to leave their base, «or they are in danger of destruction.»

After special forces spread out into the Syrian desert as a precaution, General Stephen Townsend, commander of the US-led Coalition Joint Task Force Force contacted his back number in Russia to send him an ultimatum: «We talk or we quarrel.»

After a short pause, during which the Russians weighed their options, they replied: «We are talking.» The reaction helped defuse a serious crisis between US and Russian forces operating in Syria during the civil war, which could easily escalate into a major confrontation between Moscow and Washington.

When the conversation with the Russians ended as they retreated, General Townsend was overjoyed told his coalition colleagues: “My Russian friend just blinked.”

Details of the tense confrontation that took place at the US military base at Al-Tanf on the border of Syria with Jordan in May 2017 are revealed in the book “Assad: Triumph of Tyranny by author Con Coughlin, who also writes for The Telegraph.

The incident occurred at the height of the Syrian conflict, when Russian and American troops were operating in the country, pursuing different goals.

The Russian military invaded Syria on the orders of Vladimir Putin in 2015 to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad, while the US troops were mainly fighting Islamic State militants.

A Syrian Democratic Forces fighter runs to take cover from sniper fire near Raqqa's central hospital in October 2017. Photo: AFP Vladimir Putin's meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in the Kremlin in March. Credit: AFP

At Tanf, Russian troops were under the command of General Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed «General Armageddon» for his brutal tactics against Syrian rebel groups and later commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. /p>

According to General Townsend, a potentially disastrous standoff between US and Russian forces took place when General Surovikin was on vacation and his replacement did not adhere to the strict conflict resolution protocols agreed between the Americans and Russians to avoid a direct confrontation between the two forces.

General Townsend was adamant that US troops should not capitulate to any form of Russian intimidation. “The Russians have never been able to get away with provocative actions against the US while we were operating in Syria,” he said. “We always confronted them when they got too close or tried to put pressure on us.”

US forces were involved in direct hostilities against Russia in February 2018, when a contingent of mercenaries fighting for the Wagner Group attacked a checkpoint of Syrian opposition forces and US special forces in the Syrian border city of Deir ez-Zor. Between 200 and 300 Wagner mercenaries were reportedly killed in the clash.

The book also shows that Putin, despite deploying his forces to keep Assad in power and protect two Russian military bases in the country, has little attention to the Syrian dictator.

“Putin thought Assad was a complete idiot,” recalled the former head of Arab intelligence, who met regularly with the Russian leader. “Often when they met, Putin simply ignored him and only talked to his officials.”

Despite Russian success in keeping the Assad regime in power, Putin was eventually forced to withdraw his troops from Syria in the summer of 2022 to support the military effort in Ukraine after the heavy losses Russia had suffered since the invasion.

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The US coalition command believes that the actions of the Russian military in Syria played a significant role in the series of humiliating defeats they suffered in Ukraine, because in the Syrian conflict they acted against poorly equipped militias, and in Ukraine they found themselves fighting against well-trained armed forces equipped with high-quality Western weapons.

“The Russian military has learned all the wrong lessons from its intervention in Syria,” said a senior British officer who served in the US. led the coalition. “They assumed that they could resort to the same tactics that they used in Syria to achieve their goals in Ukraine. This led to the fact that they completely misjudged the ability of Ukrainians to defend their country.”