If you read the sentence the way it was written, the REAL problem here is that the Russians are putting Arabs in their security forces. Terrible idea.
Or, more likely I think, this is just another misplaced modifier, as employed by yet another illiterate journalist.
Seems to me the sentence should read:
In more than 10 hours of gunfights with security forces, twenty militants were killed, 10 of them Arabs.
Twenty militants were killed in more than 10 hours of gunfights with security forces, 10 of them Arabs.
If you read the sentence the way it was written, the REAL problem here is that the Russians are putting Arabs in their security forces. Terrible idea. ""
I read the sentence to say that "of the 20 militants that were killed, 10 of the militants were Arab". I don't read that the Russians had Arabs in their security forces. Am I wrong?