U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said on Friday that the U.S. military will conduct "more raids" like the one that freed nearly 70 Kurdish prisoners last week. U.S. forces will be "in harm's way, there's no question about it, and I don't want anybody to be under any illusions about that," he said, despite Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook previously calling the raid "a unique circumstance.
Russian planes have encountered difficulties maintaining their operational tempo in Syria, with as much as a third of its attack aircraft and half of its transport aircraft grounded in need of repairs at any time.
