Special Forces Soldiers Reveal First Details of Battle With Russian Mercenaries in Syria
This battle became one of the rare occasions American and Russian combatants exchanged fire—one of the deadliest battles the Americans had faced in Syria.
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DonateKevin Maurer is an award‐winning journalist and the bestselling coauthor, with Mark Owen, of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden; No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL; and, with Tamer Elnoury, American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent. He has covered the military—particularly the airborne and special operations forces—for 17 years, including embeds in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, and east and central Africa. He lives in North Carolina.
This battle became one of the rare occasions American and Russian combatants exchanged fire—one of the deadliest battles the Americans had faced in Syria.
SOF exists to fight in uncertainty, but with the war in Afghanistan officially over, it’s about to enter a world of competitors and state actors looking for an adjusted world order.
In this excerpt from Kevin Maurer’s 2020 book, Rock Force, paratroopers are almost overrun by a banzai charge aimed at pushing them off the high ground.