DOHA, Qatar – Not long after the government-held city of Palmyra in central Syria fell to Islamic State fighters, the United States and Russia both scrambled warplanes on Dec. 14 to attack militant targets there.
This was exactly the kind of scenario the Pentagon feared after Moscow sent fighter jets and troops to Syria in the summer of 2015 to bail out the beleaguered government of President Bashar al-Assad: Russian and American fighters streaking toward each other in Syrian air space, raising the danger of a midair catastrophe.
