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On January 18, ISIS fighters captured thirty villages in northeastern Hama and southwestern Aleppo from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), according to Syrian opposition sources.
The villages that were supposedly captured by ISIS are:
Rasm al-Dhaba, al-Muwaylah, abu Ajwa, Muakar Shamali, Rasm al-Basl, Tawrat, Mushirifah, Rasm Arira, Qarat Rubua’, Thaniyat Al-Sawan, Zaghir, Abu Mahalah, al-Hanin, al-Janina, al-Khatabiyah, Luwaybidah, al-Jadidah, Nafha, Andarin, al-Samaqiyah, Huma, Najm Al-Zuhur, Umm Qurun, al-Mashulkhiyah, al-Halibiyah, al-Salihiyah, Abu Khanadiq, Umm Aj, Malihah Saghirah and Awijat al-Qana.
The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq has not yet confirmed these claims. However, ISIS usually announce such major advances in special video releases for propaganda purposes.
From its side, HTS has not denied the opposition sources claims. This could mean that ISIS fighters really captured all of these villages after HTS fighters had withdrawn from them to avoid being besieged by the SAA.
Syrian opposition activist claimed on January 17 that ISIS captured several villages and towns in the southeastern Idlib countryside including the strategic Sinjar town from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). However, these claims later appeared to be fake news.
The pro-opposition news outlet Enab Baladi also reported that ISIS fighters are currently trying to reach the SAA-held Tell Daman in the southwestern Aleppo countryside in order to open a route towards Idlib governorate.
If ISIS reaches Idlib governorate it may be able to recruit new fighters and further expand into the heartland of the so-called moderate opposition.
I’m sure ISIS is suddenly back there with the help of Turkey, so to prevent SAA to focus on the rest of Idlib province. I could be to gain time and have the time to send reinforcements and equipments.
The US head-hopping, heart-eating rapers have to make a stand somewhere so after the pocket is crushed I think that a considerable portion of the rest of Idlib will go in the bag too.
Hey, it’s not only the US deep state doing this, but Israel, Turks, UK, Saudi, and dare I say, French.
Don’t be naive yourself, they’re all US lickspittles.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/265c7645c00af5d7a226b6627890d689eb23fd580688a162fd047428473ba9ed.jpg
Nah! Those are just old friends fed from the same palm. Nothing to worry about :D
Translation: Qaida is fleeing the cauldron like a scalded dawg. Daesh is filling an abandoned vacuum.
Kaida is repainting itself from green to black. And cauldron is still open . Not very good for SAA as reinforcements and supplies can go in.
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It may be open for strategic reasons, to fire control the bottleneck corridor as others have proposed here. They aught to close the gap a bit more and move more troops and heavy artillery in to tighten and lengthen the corridor.
Similar thing happened to Ukro nazi army at Ilovaisk. They got into “cauldron” and a corridor was left to escape. They were told to leave their medium to heavy arms and go home but they were stupid enough to try and go with their heavy arms – “forceful escape from cauldron”. This resulted in terrible losses of Ukro nazi force.
Cauldron will be sealed soon. The terrorists will be slowly strangled like their brethren in DeZ.
And let’s not forget, getting resupplied via Turks all along !
Hmmm, schadenfreude a-go-go. ;O)
“Opposition” fashion changing, first green was the fashion hit among terrorists, then it was black, then green again, and now black again…
Just some Millioner who gets rich by suppling New”Old” Fashion.
Why couldn’t the SAA have done that!!???!!! Why couldn’t it capitalize on its own efforts to encircle the jihhadists??? The SAA should had been ready to sweep in as soon as HTS withdrew!!!! The SAA should try to push IOSIS out of these territories before it has a chance to fortify their positions!!! How many ISIS fighters are in this pocket anyways??? can they fully occupy more territory, are there more fighters sneaking in past the SAA, or HTS did not withdrew, it just changed flags and joined ISIS ????!!!!
This is how ISIS expanded their caliphate in the past. They simply moved into areas and villages after their opponents withdrew for various reasons. Most of the time their opponents withdrew because it had no strategic nor economic value to warrant stationing troops there to hold it.