Russian trucks heading to Deir al-Zour, an oil-rich Syrian province that borders Iraq, last year.CreditOmar Sanadiki/Reuters

At the outpost, American soldiers watched a column of tanks and other armored vehicles turn and drive toward them around 10 p.m., emerging from a neighborhood of houses where they had tried to gather undetected.

A half-hour later, the Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces struck.

The Conoco outpost was hit with a mixture of tank fire, large artillery and mortar rounds, the documents show. The air was filled with dust and shrapnel. The American commandos took cover, then ran behind dirt berms to fire anti-tank missiles and machine guns at the advancing column of armored vehicles.

In the American air operations center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and at the Pentagon, confounded military officers and intelligence analysts watched the scene unfold. Commanders briefed pilots and ground crews. Aircraft across the region were placed on alert, military officials said.

Back at the mission support site, the Green Berets and Marines were preparing a small reaction force — roughly 16 troops in four mine-resistant vehicles — in case they were needed at the Conoco plant. They inspected their weapons and ensured the trucks were loaded with anti-tank missiles, thermal optics and food and water.

“The day began with little hint of the battle that was about to unfold.

A team of about 30 Delta Force soldiers and Rangers from the Joint Special Operations Command were working alongside Kurdish and Arab forces at a small dusty outpost next to a Conoco gas plant, near the city of Deir al-Zour.

Roughly 20 miles away, at a base known as a mission support site, a team of Green Berets and a platoon of infantry Marines stared at their computer screens, watching drone feeds and passing information to the Americans at the gas plant about the gathering fighters.

At 3 p.m. the Syrian force began edging toward the Conoco plant. By early evening, more than 500 troops and 27 vehicles — including tanks and armored personnel carriers — had amassed.

The details of the Feb. 7 firefight were gleaned from interviews and documents newly obtained by The New York Times. They provide the Pentagon’s first public on-the-ground accounting of one of the single bloodiest battles the American military has faced in Syria since deploying to fight the Islamic State.

The firefight was described by the Pentagon as an act of self-defense against a unit of pro-Syrian government forces. In interviews, United States military officials said they had watched — with dread — hundreds of approaching rival troops, vehicles and artillery pieces in the week leading up to the attack.

The prospect of Russian military forces and American troops colliding has long been feared as the Cold War adversaries take opposing sides in Syria’s seven-year civil war.

At worst, officials and experts have said, it could plunge both countries into bloody conflict. And at a minimum, squaring off in crowded battlefields has added to heightened tensions between Russia and the United States as they each seek to exert influence in the Middle East.

Commanders of the rival militaries had long steered clear of the other by speaking through often-used deconfliction telephone lines. In the days leading up to the attack, and on opposite sides of the Euphrates River, Russia and the United States were backing separate offensives against the Islamic State in Syria’s oil-rich Deir al-Zour Province, which borders Iraq.

American military officials repeatedly warned about the growing mass of troops. But Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river — even though American surveillance equipment monitoring radio transmissions had revealed the ground force was speaking in Russian.

Syrian fighters who support the government of President Bashar al-Assad at a hospital in the eastern city of Deir-al Zour in February. The fighters were reportedly wounded in a United States airstrike near the city.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

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дин шаг": журналист заявил об угрозе войны России и США из-за ЧВК "Вагнера"

Если бы от удара армии США у населенного пункта Хашшам в сирийской провинции Дейр-эз-Зор погибли не наемники российской частной военной компании "Вагнер", а официальные военные РФ, то между Вашингтоном и Москвой была бы реальна война.

Такое мнение в своем Telegram-канале высказал российский журналист, обозреватель "Эха Москвы" Антон Орехъ.

"Частная это военная компания или государственная – разница, конечно, большая. Но всё это не отменяет одного зловещего факта: американцы убили на войне русских! Возможно десятки русских. Фактически мы вступили в прямое столкновение. От мировой войны нас спасает лишь подпольный статус армии Вагнера", - написал он.