Bloomberg:
Asked about the killing of Russian mercenaries in Syria, CIA Director Mike Pompeo told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington Tuesday that he would leave specifics to the Pentagon but “we have seen in multiple instances foreign forces using mercenaries in battles that will begin to approach the United States.”
It’s not clear who was paying the Russian contingent, whether it was Russia directly, Syria, Iran or a third party. Reports in Russian media have said Wagner -- a shadowy organization known as Russia’s answer to Blackwater, now called Academi -- was hired by Assad or his allies to guard Syrian energy assets in exchange for oil concessions.
“No one wants to start a world war over a volunteer or a mercenary who wasn’t sent by the state and was hit by Americans,” Vitaly Naumkin, a senior adviser to Russia’s government on Syria, said in an interview.
Yury Barmin, a Middle East analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank set up by the Kremlin, said Russia supports Assad’s efforts to reclaim the “crucial” eastern region of Deir Ezzor to help fund his national reconstruction and reconciliation plan, which the U.S. opposes.
Russia signed a “road map” agreement with Assad’s government last month to assist in rebuilding the nation’s electricity network. On Tuesday, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters in Moscow that Russian companies are interested in contracts to help refurbish damaged oil pipelines and wells.
www.bloomberg.com/…
This is a big deal…
To what extent is the US fighting with Russia over control of Syria’s oil?
Why is Congress silent while the US mission in Syria is expanding way beyond neutralizing ISIS?