On March 23, Russian and Turkish forces carried out a second limited joint patrol in southern Idlib. The patrol involved six armoured vehicles and took place along a short chunk of the M4 highway west of the government-controlled town of Saraqib. This part of the highway remains the only safe place within the entire security zone, which was set to be established in the framework of the Russian-Turkish de-escalation agreement.
After the March 23 patrol, the Turkish side got additional time to neutralize terrorists and radicals entrenched in the agreed to buffer zone. This was the second time when Moscow provided Ankara with such an opportunity. However, Ankara seems to be taking very little or no efforts to do so.
Over the past days, the Turkish Army established observation points near Khattab and Msheirfeh and made a formal attempt to de-block the highway removing earthen mounds made by terrorists. Despite these heroic efforts of the Turkish military, the M4 remains in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked groups and the security zone there exists only on paper. Such a situation on the ground is slowly but inevitably leading to the resumption of hostilities in the region.
Humanitarian conditions are deteriorating in the Rukban refugee camp within the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf. According to media reports, people in the camp have to pay money for tents and the bare necessities, and are forcefully recruited into the ranks of US-backed militant groups. Additionally, militants sabotage the evacuation of refugees from the camp.
A series of IED attacks rocked the town of Tabqah, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on March 21. IED explosions targeted positions, vehicles and personnel of the SDF next to the Andalusia pool and the Maysalun roundabout. 6 SDF members were reportedly killed. Pro-opposition sources immediately blamed ‘Assad agents’ for the attack. Kurdish sources blame ISIS and Turkey.
On March 22, the SDF released 80 ISIS members that had been captured during the combat operations along the eastern bank of the Euphrates. All the released individuals are reportedly Syrian citizens, from the governorates of Raqqa, al-Hasakah and Deir Ezzor. During the last few years, the SDF has released hundreds of ex-ISIS fighters.
The group often does this for money or upon request from influential figures, like tribal leaders, businessmen and local commanders. This SDF behavior likely contributed to the reemergence of ISIS cells in eastern Syria. Last week, ISIS announced that its fighters had assassinated 40 people in the province of Deir Ezzor during the last 3 months alone.
Why is is that whenever I think of the SDF, I think of fast food? This is probably why, hehe ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10
“To put ‘democracy’, in there somewhere, but it gave them a little bit of credibility”. They will be really credible, when they ditch the Americans and join the SAA.
Once a Traitors always a traitor.
Well, Russia-SAA need to finish the job, that is all. As far there are terrorists in Syria land, there will be terrorists attacks to civil persons and SAA force.
SAA will have to secure M4 it self, seem so.
USA uses Kurds to steal Syrian oil and gas. If Kurds disobey their evil plans then USA again pushes Turkey on them to discipline them.
How clever. You get your minions to recycle your proxy army. Mickey P must have a hand in this
” Despite these heroic efforts of the Turkish military, the M4 remains in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked groups and the security zone there exists only on paper.”
Are you kidding SF, ‘heroic’, that’s the one word I didn’t think anyone could use to describe the Turkish army, heroic hey, you propaganda whores. So SF is now telling us SF readers that the Turks are heroic, they’re saying the Turks efforts to free up the highway have now given them heroic status, even though they failed to achieve anything at all, So obviously it doesn’t take much to qualify as a hero for the journalist who wrote this piece of propaganda trash. I think he would’ve been much better off telling us about the massive buildup of Turkish forces around the M4 highway, or the newly built OB posts that are now effectively protecting Jisr ash Shugur from Russian air assaults, or tell us about all the unneeded Turkish anti aircraft systems that have also been deployed all along the M4 [because you don’t need AA systems to take out terrorists], but instead of anything important we only got this crap “heroic efforts of the Turkish military’, VOMIT, and surprisingly I’m the only one who complained about it. How dare you SF, Turkish occupation forced can’t be heros, it’s impossible, go wash your mouths out with soap, terrorists are what they are so don’t forget it.