Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a scenario many feared in the fog of Syria's multi-front war: a confrontation in which U.S. forces, responding to a provocation, kill Russian mercenaries or contractors on a crowded battlefield.

Russian news reports Tuesday described just such a scenario, with an unknown number of Russian military contractors killed in a ferocious U.S. counterattack last week, although Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other U.S. officials said they had no such information on casualties and the Kremlin did not confirm it. U.S. officials also said the Russian government had lodged no compl...