WASHINGTON — Russian combat pilots have been flying weapons-laden attack aircraft over US bases in Syria with increasing frequency over the past several weeks, in what Pentagon officials suspect is part of a wider pattern of deliberate provocation.
“They fly over our bases with ground attack-aircraft with weapons on them in an attempt to try to be provocative,” the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, told Senate lawmakers on Thursday.
