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Early on August 30, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) liberated Sakiyat and advanced on al-Tamanah in southeastern Idlib following heavy clashes with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
The SAA began its attack by capturing the Soukaiyate hill northeast of al-Tamanah and the Sidi Ali hill northwest of the town. After besieging the town and cutting the militants’ supply routes, army units attacked militants inside the town itself.
Earlier, heavy clashes took place in al-Tamanah farms, with HTS attempting to hold onto its positions in the vicinity of the town. The terrorist group targeted a gathering of the SAA with a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED).
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A day earlier, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) resumed its advance in southeastern Idlib capturing the towns of Khuwayn al-Kabir and Ard al-Zurzur as well as the Aghir hilltop.
Green ISIS Orcs are desperate to turn the tide. They cannot hold Syrian land though. Only the Sultan, ErrDawg can save them now.
But he wants to buy Russian planes so he’ll behave for a bit. He’ll probably just let the jihadis into Turkey, transport them through the country and put them on rubber boats heading for Greece.
Even he can’t save them.
Those rebel/terrorist held town are falling like dominos now, so what can the rebels/terrorists do to stop them falling back into SAA hands, NOTHING AT ALL, LOL LOL LOL. Go north to escape you dickheads, Turkey owes you sanctuary and you should be demanding it, take your families and head north to the Turkish border, Erdogan’s just sent 10,000 Turkish soldiers to help you cross over, and no they don’t mind the fact you’ve sliced 10 year old boys throats in front of the camera, or eaten dead SAA soldiers livers, or desecrated the bodies of dead Kurdish women and children, they’re going to make you all feel very welcome, when you try to move into their cosy safe little neighbourhoods, LOL LOL LOL.
Methinks Erdogan would rather have them stay, fight and die. Problem solved in that case, win-win for everyone. After all, foreign Jihadis in another country have their usefulness, foreign Jihadis in your own country are a giant problem.
You’re so right about that, last year even the leaders of some of the Al Nusra affiliated groups were accusing Erdogan of selling them out, they even made preparations for an imminent SAA invasion of east Idlib that never happened. I was predicting it would happen and from where it would start and when, Embarrassingly for me I was wrong and it didn’t happen at all. But it nearly did, and Assad still has that highly mobile strike force stationed near Hader in Aleppo Governorate, ready to strike west and retake the air and military bases nearby, and then head straight for the Turkish border just 50 km’s away. So it still might happen, especially if Putin can convince Erdogan to take his proxies north closer to the Turkish border, and then leave both HTS and Al Nusra to their deserved fate, which would be whatever the SAA decided it to be. Then after that, Assad could start to concentrate on the Turkish lackeys, and make their fate the same as HTS’s and Al Nusra’s, even if Erdogan doesn’t agree to it.
Is there a reason why Syria isn’t freeing up the M5 from Aleppo to Al-Eis? Why don’t they open up a 2nd front for the terrorists?
Because that would require a massive full scale operations of the kind that the SAA is not really capable of. The SAA has only a few units that are capable of going on the offensive against well determined and well armed Jihadis, the Tigers being the most obvious. And even the elite 4th Division is not as good and obviously struggling based on its performance at Kabani. I don’t see the other units pulling off such a massive offensive. Let alone sustain it. Unless Jihadi lines collapses, which they have in the south but not elsewhere I don’t see a full scale offensive happening.
And its also not really the pattern in this war. We don’t see massive WW2 style offensives, we see small scale fighting where a village or town gets taken or flanked, then the gains have to be consolidated before they move on to the next town or else the gains are lost come the Jihadi counter attack. So advances are both slow and piecemeal. It is what is. And as long as the SAA still takes a town or village or two every day that still means by Syrian standards that the SAA is winning big and the enemy is collapsing. Start worrying when no further advances are being reported and the only news coming from Syria is that the RuAF and SyAF are smashing Jihadi supply lines and bases. Because chances are the Jihadis are holding firm and not really being hit as hard as the news would want you to believe. These guys have learned to move and operate under enemy air power. If only because they turned all Idlib into one giant Swiss cheese network of tunnels.
SAA is capable to make a massive full scale offensive on Idlib with the help of Russia aerospace force. The problem is that Russia does not want to scare Turkey too much.
No they’re not. They never were capable of such offensives, even before the country fell apart in civil war. Just look at Syria’s abysmal performance in the 1973 and 1982 wars. And nowadays the country is basically falling apart and the armed forces are but a shadow of what they used to be. When they keep saying divisions they’re actually saying commands. There is not a 17.000 strong force attacking Kabani, because that actually would be a full scale offensive. Even the socalled elite 4 division is only capable of launching small scale attacks at battalion level, if not smaller. And so are the Jihadis by the way. If 2 tanks, some APC’s and a VBIED are considered an Jihadi offensive that tells you something about the scale of the fighting in this war.
Only the Tigers are capable of launching successful attacks in this war and to a lesser degree the 4th division. And these attacks always consist of small scale attacks where a village or town gets taken, consolidated and if lucky the next day the attack goes for the next town of village. That’s an offensive in Syria. Because if the SAA actually had a full division of 17.000 to throw at a place like Kabani that place would long fallen by now.
Excellent idea, but we don’t know the logistics they are dealing with, number of troops, amount of back up, etc..
Blow them up. Enough of talks, BLOW them up.
Great
Another encirclement is forming, lets hope that ISIS and its allies is stupid enough to stand and fight! The best thing, in the long run, is if ISIS and their allies would stand and fight every time, that would make them manageable bites for SAA and RuAF.
All the best of thoughts to SAA and RuAF and their allies.