Free Republic

About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm (Wagner Group) were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter. ...A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last week that a force aligned with Assad, backed with artillery, tanks, rockets and mortars, had on Feb. 7 attacked fighters with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces near Deir al-Zor. U.S. special forces were accompanying the SDF forces that came under attack, officials in Washington said. The U.S.-led coalition in Syria retaliated, killing about 100 of the pro-Assad forces, according to...

The last contact Grigoriy Gancherov and his wife had with their son, a Russian private military contractor fighting in Syria, was on Feb. 4 last year. The father subsequently learned from a friend and fellow fighter of Sergei's that the 25-year-old had died several days later in a major battle against U.S.-led forces in the Deir al-Zor region. It was not until mid-April that he received formal notification of his son's death and the body was returned, accompanied by a death certificate stating he died on March 7 on the other side of Syria. Gancherov's account is one of half...

Thousands of Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi fighters have arrived in Syria to defend Damascus and its suburbs against Islamic State (IS), which has said it will mount an offensive against the capital following recent battlefield successes in Deir al-Zor and Palmyra. So far, 7,000 have reportedly been positioned around the city. They are expected to go on the offensive to retake from fundamentalist militiamen the suburb of Jobar from which they can easily access the eastern gates of the city. The total number of reinforcements sent by Iran could rise to 15,000 when fighters reach the northern port of Latakia...