Turkish forces are seen at Mount Barsaya in northeast of Afrin, January 28, 2018 / Khalil Ashawi / Reuterss
On October 13, the Turkish military completed the construction of yet another post in the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The London-based monitoring group said that the new post was built near the town of Benin in the southern Idlib countryside. The post oversees a road linking the government-held town of Ma’arat al-Nu’man with the town of Ariha, which is held by al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
Turkish-backed militants maintain a strong presence around Benin. In the morning, two militants of the Suqour al-Sham Brigades were killed near the town in a landmine explosion.
The Turkish military began building the post around a week ago. At around the same time, a similar post was established near the town of Afes in the southern Idlib countryside, only a few hundred meters away from Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions in the town of Saraqib.
Turkey has been reinforcing its troops in Greater Idlib for a few weeks now in what appears to be an attempt to deter the SAA and its allies.
Recent reports revealed that the army is planning to launch a large-scale ground operation in the region in response to the repeated violations of the Russian-Turkish ceasefire agreement by HTS and its allies.
The longer they wait, the stronger turky and the terrorists will be. Stupid from President Asad !!!
The number of turkish military posts is irrelevant. Once a full ground and air campaign begins they will all be overrun.
The bad thing is that we were saying the same thing in Afghanistan but the Taliban came victorious. These groups like Taliban or HTS have some secret support.
How, pray? The SAA isn’t capable of such action and the Russians unwilling to engage Turkish forces. You may not like it, but that’s the reality. At least at the moment.
You have zero understanding of the conflict as it currently stands. The SAA & allies can ground hts into dust while the turkish fools sit back and do nothing.
Syria & allies have all the time they need. They control the airspace, ground & seas. What does hts control? Nothing, which is why they are being reduced to dust.
Multiple nations get to test state of the art weapons systems on hts/ turk backed garbage. An excellent opportunity.
We may all find out very soon just how much the Turkish admin want Idlib for their own. Once they start to lose soldiers en masse, Idlib might lose it shine.
We have been hearing about this impending ground assault for a year or more now. Turkey has made a massive buildup in Idlib since then and to think the SAA will simply walk in is a little optimistic. Just because one wishes it to be so doesn’t make it so.
We’ll see