Tensions between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian Army are growing in southern Idlib. Recently, government forces repeatedly shelled positions of the terrorist groups in the Zawiya Mountain area. The most intense shelling targeted Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists near Fatterah and Sufuhon.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the al-Qaeda-affiliated “Wa Harid al-Muminin” operations room described this as a blatant violation of the ceasefire regime and announced that they’d killed several pro-government fighters in retaliatory strikes.
At the same time, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham blocked several Turkish military vehicles near the town of Darat Izza in western Aleppo. According to local sources, the group is opposing the growth of the Turkish military presence there because earlier Turkish-backed forces opposed its attempt to reopen commercial crossings with the government-held area in western Aleppo and eastern Idlib.
Contraband traffic and various fees on commercial activities are an important source of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s income. Therefore, despite the public declarations to defeat the Assad regime, the group is interested in trade between the militant-held part of Greater Idlib and the government-controlled part of Syria.
Militant groups directly controlled by Turkey also faced a series of attacks. On May 2, a prominent commander of the Sham Corps, known as Haj Talib al-Khatib, survived an assassination attempt receiving light injures. Unknown gunmen on a motorcycle fired on his vehicle on the road linking the towns of al-Nerab and Sarmin. Late on the same day, Abu ‘Arib, a field commander of the Ahrar al-Sham, died from a land mine explosion on the frontline in southern Idlib. A part of Pro-Turkish sources accuses Hayat Tahrir al-Sham of staging such attacks in order to undermine the influence of its Turkish-controlled counterparts even further.
ISIS cells assassinated two Syrian intelligence officers and a supposed Hezbollah member in the province of Daraa in attacks on April 30 and May 2. These assassinations became the latest in a series of ISIS attacks on government forces. Using the instability on the frontline in Idlib, the terrorist group expanded its operations southern Syria.
The ISIS activity is also growing in Iraq.
Early on May 2, ISIS cells carried out coordinated attacks on positions of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the province of Saladin. Nine fighters of the Tigris Regiment were killed near Mukeshefah and a member of the 41th Brigade was killed near Balad. ISIS militants also briefly seized the PMF positions in the Mukeshefah area.
Later on the same day, ISIS terrorists armed with machine guns and sniper rifles fired on a police station in the village of Zaghinah in Diyala province. Four police officers were killed and nine others were injured.
In a separate development, ISIS units detonated an improvised explosive device on the route of a PMF convoy in the district of Udhaim, and then attacked the convoy’s vehicles with machine guns. A soldier was killed and 3 others were injured.
The increasing number of ISIS attacks in late April and early May even drew the attention of the US-led coalition. On April 29, coalition warplanes bombed the ISIS stronghold in the Hamrin Mountains. The strikes followed a PMF security operation in the area. Nonetheless, the following developments in the provinces of Saladin and Diyala demonstrated that the ISIS threat remains an important factor of the security situation in the country.
The terrorists should be given just two options and nothing else.
1. Unconditional capitulation
or
2. Total destruction.
?
I would only give them option #2, you are quite the humanitarian.
I suspect that something went wrong in the Daraa reconciliation process. Maybe a large part of the former rebels didn’t feel like they got a fair deal after all. Which in turn is what allows ISIS to tap into that discontent and establish a presence there. This is how ISIS establishes itself. Find disgruntled people and feed into those feelings to gain a foot on the ground. Damascus and the Russians better start addressing this before the next step happens, ISIS creating an actual presence in Daraa through open revolt.
I am sick of ceasefires and messing about,it should be total war on those bastards.
Yes, that’s right.
You just openly declared war on the only democracy in the region. Shame on you (being cynical)
What the fuck are you on about?i am talking about total war on terrorists.
indeed you did
That’s doubtful. These Western created “terrorist groups have no particular loyalty to any country, Government, not even the countries that recruited, trained, supply, armed, and pays them to masquerade as their “enemy” to justify it’s invasion of the designated country. The war on terror is the given excuse US Government uses to gift “freedom” to these countries. “Freedom” being defined as invasion, attack, with chemical, and biological weapons, DU munitions, deliberate bombing of civilians stealing the gold reserves, murdering its leaders, and then razing the country to the ground. Establishes control of the resources, the theft, and sale, if there’s enough left installing a puppet Government. The 1st terrorist group is Taliban. The 2nd group is al CIAeda. The 3rd group is ISIS. MI6, US, French, intelligence services, and Mossad, jointly created these groups. The Headcutters provided recruiting services. US defense contractors.
Daraa and Quneitra were part of the 2017 reconciliation process, the Arab league representative King Abdullah of Jordan and Assad hashed out a deal which allowed the 50,000 strong Southern Front Alliance and 2 other big Arab militias [5 to 10,000] to enter a ceasefire and reconciliation agreement with the government. But the FSA didn’t voluntarily enter a ceasefire agreement back in 2018, Assad had to beat them stupid for 3 weeks before they put down their weapons, and after the SAA victory 25,000 of the ex FSA fighters were forcibly conscripted into the SAA, so in other words that group never reconciled with the government, they were forced to put down their weapons and forced to join Assad’s army, but they never really reconciled. But It’s not just Isis or the ex FSA fighters causing problems in Daraa and Quneitra, there are 4 different parties vying for influence here, 1 the Syrian government, 2 Isis, 3 the local Sunni and Druze factions, 4 and the Iranian factions, that’s why it’s so complicated here, there’s too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
“Contraband traffic and various fees on commercial activities are an important source of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s income. Therefore, despite the public declarations to defeat the Assad regime, the group is interested in trade between the militant-held part of Greater Idlib and the government-controlled part of Syria.”
Which means the Government’s also interested in doing deals with HTS, and that’s really bad news for the new Ottoman Empire. HTS starts selling much needed food the opposition really needs to the government, that’s a plus, Turkey and the opposition have to put up more roadblocks and checkpoints to stop HTS trading with the government [using vital manpower to do it], another plus, And on top of that we have resentment in the ranks, lack of trust, jealousy, and most importantly, a growing conflict of interest between Turkey and the Arabs in Syria, it couldn’t get much better. I’d say this is all Assad’s doing, I don’t think it’s something the Russians would suggest or approve of, but Assad’s very happy to reconcile to get more territory back without a fight, so I think he’s going to milk this opportunity for everything he can get out of it, way to go Assad, brains beats brawn once again.
It is more than obvious who is behind these Wahhabi abominations in both Iraq and Syria…
ISIS doesn’t exist
Try telling that to them …LOL
You couldn’t because they would flee to the border into israel, scared to force answer that statement
Tell Mossad :)
I agree, Mossad fueled psyop, like so many other deideological terror groups.
Odd…. Isis cells suddenly become mossad-like professional death sqauds….