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Heavy clashes erupted between pro-government forces and the militant alliance led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the village of Btaysh in the northern countryside of the provincial capital of Hama on April 14.
Members of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) entered Btaysh in the morning and temporarily got a full control of it. Then, the SAA and the NDF attempted to develop advance in the direction of Halfaya.
However, government forces faced a stiff resistance from HTS-led forces. Militants reportedly killed 5 pro-government fighters and captured two battle tanks: a T-90 main battle tank and a T-72 main battle tank. Pro-militant media accounts are full of these reports, but no videos or photos have been released.
HTS-led forces also attacked the SAA and the NDF in the village of Btaysh. A fighting is now ongoing in the area.
I wonder if the 5 dead were the tank crews?
Tiger forces continue getting their asses handed to them I see. Either Syrian command suddenly became incompetent, or these are not the same terrorists that were kicked out of Aleppo last year.
The rebels are very well dug in. Soon, the Saa will take Souran, then Morek, Halfaya will be completely surrounded, and then it will be over.
God willing
I believe that the western side of that salient has better agricultural land and intact towns/villages that are worth fighting over. The eastern side was blown to bits long ago so should be less heavily defended and easier to retake. I remember seeing photographs of the villages/towns along that highway when the SAA was trying to keep control of it. Their inhabitants had fled mush earlier and practically all of the structures were piles of rubble. The SAA saw no reason why to hang onto them so withdrew to the south and east.
where does it say here anything to that regard?
Remember how the rebels had managed to break the siege of Aleppo and the SAA were the ones that were cut off? Things looked bad, but in the end you saw the triumph.
So I am hoping that the HTS alliance will run out of manpower in this front and a retreat will start.
I’m hoping that they’re keeping the US head-chopping, heart-eating rapers busy while they set up an attack elsewhere.
How the hell do you capture 2 active tanks?
maybe the crew fled them
The crew could have been killed outside the tank, by a missile strike, or some other cause of incapacitation. It could have been rendered immobile during a retreat. or just left behind due to a tactical purpose (tracking device.)
By blowing a track off to render it immobile. The crew can’t repair it when subjected to direct fire so they abandon the tank. Usually when they do that then the tank commander sticks a thermite grenade in the breech of the cannon to render it useless or sets a time delay explosive charge that will detonate the cannon’s ammunition to fully destroy the tank.
*Hama not Homs
SAA needs to get to morek and cut off that road asap, from there they can head onto khan shaykun and investigte the chemical incident
Forget about that chemical incident since the West won’t believe whatever the SAA finds. It’s not a bad idea for the SAA to retake the highway up to Morek since that would narrow the salient. They might have an easy time doing that since the towns and villages along that route were mostly reduced to rubble from earlier fighting so would provide less cover for the defenders.