The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) reopened the M4 highway in the northeastern part of the country on December 11 with a direct support from Russia.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the army completed its deployment south of the highway, between the town of Tell Tamr in northern al-Hasakah and the town of al-Truaziyah in northern Raqqa.
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The M4 highway, which links al-Hasakah with Raqqa and Aleppo, is now open once again for civilian transportation and shipping.
The North Press Agency (NPA) reported that Turkish-backed militants were forced to withdraw 1 km to the north of the highway. The agency also released a video showing two Russian armored vehicles patrolling the highway, a few hours after its reopening by the SAA.
A Russian-Turkish agreement reached last October forced the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to withdraw to the south of the highway.
The M4 highway will likely be administrated by the SAA, the Russian Military Police and possibly by the SDF’s security forces. The reopening of the highway may mark the end of major military confrontations in northeast Syria.
“The reopening of the highway may mark the end of major military confrontations in northeast Syria.”
One would hope so, but
1) Heavily-armed Turkish-backed head-choppers will need money to survive in the future, 2) Either tFSA or ISIS will be the ‘biggest gang in town’ in the safe zone when unemployed refugee teenagers are looking for a paying job and 3) the ‘Safe Zone’ Turkish head-choppers are occupying hasn’t been depopulated of Kurds (yet) – only armed YPG and other militia were forced out. The farmers didn’t leave.
Forced relocation of millions of unvetted refugees from the Turkish camps to the Turkish-administered safe zone will start soon. The PYD only like ethnic cleansing when they are the ones doing it in Kurdish territory. They’re not going to like it one bit when Turks return the favor by displacing remaining Kurdish farmers with those refugees. Kurds that do remain in the safe zone will be under Turkish administration, will have to register and will have to pay taxes to them. That’s not going to go over too well.
It’s good that some kind of progress was made, but Turkey’s ‘solution’ is almost guaranteed to devolve into a humanitarian disaster, more armed conflict with head-choppers and general chaos. I don’t know what solutions would even work, except maybe sending in another 5,000 Spetsnaz to exterminate every last head-chopper – Turkish or otherwise. But why should Russia spill their blood to clean up another f’king disaster the US created?
This is nearly good news but the 1 km exclusion zone is the ball breaker, just 1 miserable km, that’s all, that means any terrorists with anything more powerful than a slingshot can sit a mere 1km away and take potshots at anybody using the highway, marvelous idea. A 5 km exclusion zone would be a more of a workable arrangement, at least that way it’d stop the retarded terrorists sniping travellers as they drove by, 1 km is just a joke.
Fake uniforms party again by communist guerilla? M4 will never again under PKK/YPG control. Flooding with fake news wont change the reality on the ground.