Syrian and Russian warplanes carried out on December 7 more than 60 airstrikes on terrorists’ positions in the Greater Idlib region.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), more than 20 villages and towns in the southern and southeastern Idlib countryside were targeted. Most of the targeted areas are under the control of al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Opposition activists released several videos showing some of the airstrikes, which targeted the towns of Kafr Nabl, al-Bara, Ehsim, Baluon, Maarzita and Talmenes.
A day earlier, al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and Turkish-backed factions carried a series of attacks on Syrian Arab Army (SAA) troops and positions around Greater Idlib.
This new wave of airstrikes appears to be a response to these provocations. The SAA and its allies have been refraining from launching a large-scale ground operation in Greater Idlibfor for unclear reasons.
The analysis below was originally released in September 2019:
bomb them night and day… zero tolerance with those goatfuckrs
I miss those flags very much ? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd1958c9c3fd08277a8fa9ebdcb2ae1155c3b62bc94e38610bdd396be8b26225.jpg
Was that a white helmet running in the wrong direction 10 secs into 4th video. Happy to collect the pay and make those propaganda videos but fuck this real stuff.
Unclear reasons, are you kidding us, the reasons very clear, the 13th Astana agreement is the real reason the SAA don’t wipe them off the map. According to that worthless piece of toilet paper the SAA can’t legally attack the FSA, NFL, SFL, or SNA, because they’re deemed to be “moderate opposition” by the Turks and Russians, the SAA can only legally attack HTS, Al Nusra, and Al Qaeda, they’re the only groups deemed to be terrorists and legally designated as enemy combatants. But as we all know all these groups cooperate together, the so called moderate opposition and the designated terrorists act as one when it comes to opposing SAA advances against the designated terrorists, the moderate opposition always comes to HTS’s aid every single time. Just before the latest instalment of Astana number 13, the SAA had the terrorists and moderate opposition on the run, they’d been ignoring Astana agreement number 12 for several months [they ignored number 11 too] and giving the Turks hell in the process. I keep saying the war in Syria was practically won just before that 13th agreement was signed, the SAA had recaptured a pile of towns in Hama and southern Idlib, they had 350,000 refugees stacked up at the Turkish border, 80,000 had already crossed, and had an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 more refugees ready to head north to Turkey, so I think the war was just days away from ending with a SAA victory, the only thing that saved Erdogan was the new Astana agreement number 13 and the God awful CEASEFIRE it imposed. And even though Assad’s still ignoring this new 13th agreement by continuing with his aerial bombardment and artillery strikes, he’s not following it up with ground incursions, and that’s because the FSA, NFL, SFL, keep getting in the way, or worse still reinforcing the terrorists with their own fighters. Assad has to convince the UN to designate some of Turkey’s moderate opposition into a different category, the SNA in Al Hasakah notched up over a dozen well documented war crimes in just the first week of the Turkish invasion and proved to the world they’re no different to the terrorists, and since the SNA are made up from the ranks of the FSA, NFL, and SFL, all those groups are also guilty of war crimes and are all terrorists. And Erdogan picked the most moderate fighters from the FSA, NFL, SFL to make up his new squeaky clean SNA, LOL, moderate my arse. Assad can’t convince Putin to remove the FSA, NFL, SFL, or SNA from the moderate opposition list and place them on the designated terrorist list [Erdogan won’t let him], so Assad has to work at getting the UN to do it instead, and since the UN’s been complaining very loudly about the Turkish proxies behaviour in Al Hasakah, and also saying Turkey is ultimately responsible for it, now’s the best time to try and have some of those so called moderate opposition groups reclassed into a more appropriate grouping, like designated enemy combatants/terrorists. Hopefully Assad’s already sent a dozen delegations to the UN to complain about the Turkish proxies behaviour. along with piles of hard evidence and eyewitness testimony there can be no dispute as to their real designation, moderate opposition don’t eat dead SAA soldiers livers on camera, they don’t trample and desecrate the corpses of dead female civilians on camera, they don’t happily laugh while slicing a 10 year old boys throats on camera, and they don’t capture and kill innocent civilians and then summarily execute them all on camera, none of those thing are the things moderate opposition do, only terrorists behave like that. By rights Putin should be the one forcing Erdogan to abandon the so called moderate opposition, he should be the one telling Erdogan his moderate groups can’t be allowed to remain as viable political entities, and also forcing him to redesignate them as terrorists organizations. But we all know that’s not going to happen, geopolitics prevails, hopefully Assad has better luck with the UN since they already seem to be making some helpful announcements, I’m taking that as a good sign they will be more helpful than Putin has. I’m not so sure a new ground invasion isn’t about to start though, it sure looks like there’s one on the way to me, lots of Syrian helicopters dropping barrel bombs is usually a good sign the SAA are about to turn up at the terrorists doors, and the SAAF are dropping quite a few now. Barrel bombs aren’t bad at all, they’re an excellent cheap effective weapon when used against an enemy, and Assad only uses them against his enemies, contrary to what some msm reports say, but as with all weapons sometimes accidents do happen, hopefully the SAAF and SAA are doing their very best to avoid that happening. Go SAAF go, and hopefully it’s go SAA as well after the SAAF have finished.
Good analysis, I fully read your text. What do you think about all the airstrikes from the Ruaf and Syaaf? I think this is just a waste of money. They bomb the terrorists, but don’t launch a military operation. I don’t wanna know how much money that costs and I don’t think it makes the pilots keeping their morale high for a long time, as their launch hundrets of airstrikes, but on the ground nothing changes, plus the risk of getting shot down by some manpads gets higher the more airstrikes they launch, without starting a ground operation.
Thanks, I appreciate it. They are a waste of money, and if the terrorists are allowed to remain in Idlib forever, even more money will be wasted, money that could be better spent on rebuilding the country. Sadly Assad can’t afford to stop bombing them either, they’d probably get out of hand if the bombing stopped, at least Assad has them boxed in with the 24/7 air/artillery strikes. Assad’s been ignoring Putin and Erdogan’s ceasefires since about February/March, hopefully he continues to ignore the ceasefire and starts taking back some more ground soon, little birdies keep whispering to me that Kafranbel in south central Idlib is where all the action is taking place next. As to the Russian airstrikes I’m not so sure what their objectives are sometimes, I seem to see a separate agenda with the Russian airstrikes as to the one I see with the SAAF, it’s not always clear how their targets relate to the Syrians targets on many occasions. But I have noticed that the Russians kindly take on all the tough targets, the SAAF never have to make risky attacks on terrorists that would also endanger civilians nearby, in those sort of missions only the Russians do the heavy lifting [better equipment], so I must say I’m grateful for that helping hand. Sadly for the Russians it also means their humanitarian record for civilian casualties is starting to stack up way too high, though in all honesty it’d be much higher if the SAAF had to do it all themselves. Fingers crossed the M5 highway will soon only have SAA vehicles driving up and down it, and all of them will hopefully taking a few pot shots at the Turkish OB post as they drive by it. Cheers.
I assume the next phase will be an offensive towards Maarat al-Numan. Al masdar reported that it will be attacked from 2 different axis. From the sw and se. It think the SAA will advance on Kafr Sijnah, Rakaya and Naqeer west of Maarat al-Numan, so a buffer zone to the rest will be created. I’d rather see a quick encirclement, so the civilians don’t have to flee alongside with the terrorists, just like in Khan Shaykoun and stay in their towns. The terrorists would also immediately flee to the turkish op, so an encirclement would reduce SAA’s casualties, the civilians don’t have to flee to the rest of the zoo and all terrorists will either surrender or flee to the turkish op.
I think it’ll be Ma’arrat Tayrah, Kafr Sajnah, and Ash Shaykh Mustafa targeted first, and when they’re under SAA control they’ll push north towards Ma’arrat Hurmah and then Hazzarin, and finally Kafranbel, where they’ll stop and consolidate their positions. But before they head to Maarrat al Nu’man it think the SAA also want to isolate the Turkish OB post near Al Uraymah in the south west, so I think they may capture a few small villages around this area before they head to Maarrat al Nu’man. Fingers crossed something happens soon.
Yeah Kafr Nabl is important, as it is located on two important roads, one of them heads towards the al-Ghab plain. The scenario could happen, like you said and when Kafr Nabl is liberated, the SAA can advance towards to Zawiya mountains and create a pocket sw of Kafr Nabl and head west of it, so they can also take a part of the al-Ghab plain, when they control a chunk of the Zawiya mountains east of it. Hopefully this offensive will happen in the near future.
Ok, so… what ? Erdogan easily can resupply men, weapons, logistic, health care to thiese terrorirsts. Am I wrong ?
Poor innocent civilians and moderate rebels being harmed by non-stop brutal Assad Regime and drunk Russkie airstrikes! The Moderate rebels of Idlib are in desparate need of Stinger MANPADS, Javelin missiles, and air support from the US Military!
Israeli Airforce planning HUGE mass airstrikes against T4 Airbase in Syria! Recently the Mullah Regime deployed Bavar-373 air defense missiles there to limit IDF activity in the region. This will NEVER be tolerated!!
Waste of time. west of money. if assad and Russia and there gang terrorist brave enough they should send in ground Force., bombing from far away is very easy even Charlie Brown can do that