Source: theatlantic.com
Members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham have allegedly agreed to surrender the neighborhood of al-Waer of the Syrian city of Homs to government forces, AlMasdarNews reported on Monday.
The agreement was reportedly made with mediation of the Russian Reconciliation Center.
“According to opposition activists, the rebels and civilians wanting to leave Al-Wa’er will be transported out of Homs City to unnamed location, most likely the Idlib Governorate.
Government activists have reported a similar agreement in Al-Wa’er, with the remaining militants and their families being transported out of Homs City within the next 6-8 weeks by the Syrian Red Crescent and military police.
Similar agreements have been put in place in the past; however, this evacuation plan was established by the Russian Reconciliation Center instead the government’s reconciliation committee,” AlMasdarNews’ article reads.
Good news; now the next priority should be clearing out the “pockets” in and around Damascus and the large “pocket” between Hama and Homs. However, there is a fly in the ointment: The “militants and their families” should NOT be allowed to evacuate safely like this. They should be annihilated. Jihadis NEVER give Syrian soldiers this option when they have them surrounded – and they slaughter them if captured.
Allowing them a golden bridge puts more pressure on the US head-chopping, heart-eating rapers in Idlib. No doubt there will be a fair few spies planted in the evacuations columns and rumours of informers spread around too. Attrition has many faces.
Not to mention the addition of new groups of headchoppers from the south puts a strain on the Idlib headchoppers. They have to be absorbed, rearmed, they form a potential security risk, there’s fighting over who gets them, and some of those groups don’t want to be assimilated into the existing groups but have designs to become a faction of their own again.
It’s definitely not going to be a free ride for them.
What do u mean pressure?
More US head-chopping, heart-eating rapers overcrowding the place, more internecine squabbles, more opportunities for the regime forces to sow discord and get the bastards fighting each other….
Then they would resist even more furiously, for they would have nothing to lose. Just look at the Eastern Front in WWII. If you surrendered there you were truly fucked on both sides. Knowing that surrender was not an easy option each side fought on bitterly and it probably prolonged the war. The fighting was far less bitter on the Western Front where troops on both side knew that decent treatment would await them if they were to surrender.
I dare say that the harsh treatment that SAA soldiers can expect at the hands of the Jihadis helped the regime to survive in no small measure, as they literally do not have any other option but to win or die horribly. ISIS would have captured Deir Ezzor long ago if the troops there had the actual option of knowing they could surrender and live. And those Jihadis in all the various enclaves know that surrender is an option. Which is a good thing, otherwise the SAA would still be fighting bitterly to capture places that surrendered long ago at great cost in lives and resources to the SAA.
They are not “surrendering” and becoming normal, peaceful, law-abiding citizens under Syrian government authority – they are being allowed to get away with their lives and weapons, to join other jihadis in another front. Your armchair philosophizing does not hold water. All war, in the final analysis, comes down to attrition: you win a war by decimating as much of the enemy as possible, NOT letting them go unscathed when you have them surrounded and nearly defeated. These are hardened, experienced, ideologically and mentally committed, fanatical Muslim jihadis who have been committing savage crimes in collusion with external forces – they should be wiped out!
Why do you think it is, that the jihadis always seem to have a plentiful supply of fighters despite numerous battlefield reverses; while the Syrian government side nowadays is chronically short of manpower and not very successful at getting new recruits, with young Syrians preferring to flee to other countries or hide out in Damascus lounging at cafes rather than go to the frontlines to fight, and even most of the enlisted Syrian soldiers & militiamen often fighting in a less-than-brave manner when pressed by jihadi offensives and running away rather than engage the attacking enemy? Two reasons:
1. The Syrian armed forces have been severely depleted by continuous attrition and the slaughtering of captured Syrian soldiers over the past 6 years. Many of the bravest Syrian fighting men are already dead.
2. Syrian men – both enlisted and unenlisted – know that, as a Syrian government soldier, they can expect to be brutally tortured and executed, beheaded, etc., if they fall into the hands of the enemy – whereas as a jihadi, if you haven’t gotten killed in the actual battlefield clashes and bombardments, generally you have a fair chance of being allowed to live (or even be AMNESTIED) if you become a prisoner-of-war, or being allowed to retreat to safety with your life and your weapons if you are surrounded. THERE ARE VERY FEW THINGS IN THE WORLD WORSE FOR MORALE, THAN THIS KNOWLEDGE.
“Just look at the Eastern Front in WWII. If you surrendered there you were truly fucked on both sides. Knowing that surrender was not an easy option each side fought on bitterly and it probably prolonged the war.”
Your WWII example supports MY point, not yours. Just imagine if, on the Eastern Front during WWII, the Soviet side had been treating surrendered Nazi soldiers with kid gloves and “amnestying” them, allowing surrounded Nazi troops to retreat unharmed and join the other Nazi forces, etc.; while the Nazis killed and destroyed at will – WHICH SIDE DO YOU THINK WOULD HAVE WON???
I see what you’re saying, but eventually the retreating jihadis who rejoin other jihadis to continue fighting won’t have much to fight for anymore pretty soon, considering at how savage the SAA has been as of late in taking back its country. I think I would rather allow them to surrender and for SAA to gain more ground, rather than wasting the lives of more good men in a bitter fight to their last man. But each situation is different I suppose.
“…eventually the retreating jihadis who rejoin other jihadis to continue fighting won’t have much to fight for anymore pretty soon…”
This is just YOUR (optimistic) speculation. I don’t see the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel etc., or any of the jihadi armies armed & supported by them, giving up their quest to defeat and overthrow the Syrian government yet. They still control huge swathes of territory. The U.S. is, right now, INCREASING its military presence inside Syria.
“I think I would rather allow them to surrender and gain more ground…”
Once more: They are NOT SURRENDERING – they are being ALLOWED TO RETREAT TO SAFETY WITH THEIR WEAPONS DESPITE BEING SURROUNDED, simply bolstering the jihadi front in another area.
i see where youre coming from, but those huge swaths of area are mostly desert, and those jihadis will eventually die sooner or later in another battle with the SAA, so either they decide they gonna die in battle or just stop fighting completely, you see what im saying? SAA/russia has the upper hand now
They will be all collected in Idlib countryside for the final assault in 2 or 3 years.
Syria should repay with kindness and have a terrorist drive the buses which are rigged with bombs and detonate them.
Very nice!!! Just give it all back to SAA, all of it, everything, just give it to them ???
This is a big win if it comes to pass . This will make recovering the area between Homs and Hama much easier , as the jihadists have fewer and fewer options . Imagine they will be able to close a few more tunnels as well . Very well done !