US hopes to avoid future clashes between US forces and Russian military in Syria
The US Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, announced at a press conference on Wednesday that US intelligence is convinced that there will be no more clashes between US forces and private military forces in Syria.
"This likely won’t happen again," said Coats, who serves as the coordinator of the activities of all sixteen US intelligence agencies, when asked if a repeat of the incident that occurred in February near the settlement of Hisham in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor was possible. "There is good communication between the various forces gathered across small areas in Syria, to avoid this sort of thing. Many warnings are being sent," Coats stressed.
"But we [the US] are not going to expose our troops to danger as a result of someone's miscalculations. We have made that clear to our adversaries. I cannot go into detail about how we have done so and why. We sent a clear signal: we are here, so you should not be here <...>, if you don’t follow this, there will be consequences," said the head of the US National Intelligence.
"We have not seen a repeat of this until now. Let's hope that this signal was heard by all those different actors [in Syria] who thought they could launch a strike against us," Coats added.
On February 7, the US-led coalition forces conducted the strike against the Syrian militia affiliated with Assad in the province of Deir ez Zor. The U.S. coalition said that the blow was struck in response to an attack on the headquarters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). According to Reuters, at least 100 people were killed in the attack. Russian media sources provide a much higher number.
The Pentagon noted that the strike was "only in self-defense." The US, according to the Department of Defense, used a telephone line designed to prevent conflicts with Russia in Syria, before, during and after the offensive against the opposition forces at Hashsham.