https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/...sian-mercenaries-prepare-more-attacks-n855271
DEIR EZ-ZOR, Syria — Standing on a windswept mound, Brig. Gen. Jonathan Braga pointed to the spot just a mile away from where Russian mercenaries and fighters loyal to the Syrian government fired at his soldiers.
"Those artillery rounds could have landed and killed Americans, and that's why we continue to prepare our defenses," said Braga, the director of operations for the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition.
Only steps away sits a sprawling oil and gas refinery that U.S.-backed forces captured from ISIS last year and that is just beginning to hum with life again.
Braga's forces
repelled the surprise assault from the pro-Bashar al-Assad fighters and the Russian private military contractors. The Feb. 7 clash was the first time in 50 years that Americans and Russians have engaged in direct combat.
While there were no U.S. casualties, Braga worries that more clashes may follow. The Americans and their allies are fortifying embankments to prepare for potential future confrontations.
A team from NBC News visited the base this week to speak with Braga and other U.S. military personnel on the ground during the attack — the first group of journalists to do so. There are around 2,000 American troops in Syria fighting ISIS, which has been pushed out of much of the territory it once controlled.
While they are opposed to Assad's government, the Americans have not been targeting the regime's soldiers and its allies in the civil war, including Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.
Braga's men launched punishing airstrikes and artillery fire at the pro-regime fighters and Russian mercenaries. The Pentagon called the attack retaliation for their “unprovoked” incursion into territory controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurds and Syrian rebels.
Between 200 and 300 pro-regime fighters died in the attack. Among them were mercenaries employed by a Russian contracting firm, according to three U.S military officials with direct knowledge of the incident.
