Illustrative image, by the SANA
On February 14, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) foiled three infiltrations attempts by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkistan Islamic Party.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), militants from both groups tried to launch attacks on the SAA’s positions and residential areas in the government-held part of the northern Hama countryside and the southeastern Idlib countryside.
The TIP is openly affiliated with the al-Qaeda, while HTS announced its defection from the terrorist organization two years ago. Despite this, both groups are close allies.
The army responded to these violations of the Russian-Turkish demilitarized zone agreement by shelling several militant positions in al-Lataminah in northern Hama and Khan Shaykhun in southern Idlib.
These recent infiltration attempts reflect the deteriorating security situation in the demilitarized zone around Idlib. The leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran discussed the situation there during a summit in the Russian city of Sochi few hours ago. However, the outcome of the summit is yet to be announced.
Is it deterioration when its basically business as usual? Headchoppers constantly carry out infiltrations and attacks, the SAA responds with artillery barrages. Seems like business as usual for the Idlib Headchopper Reservation if you ask me. Now if the number of headchopper attacks were on the increase, THAT would be a sign of deterioration. But the article doesn’t mention this. Nor do previous similar ones.
Three in one day isn’t usual.
What is usual? Without a baseline being given its hard to make a judgment.
One or less than one infiltration attempt by day.
Seems kinda low for even the best of times. I reckon that for every attempt we hear there’s got to be at least several we never hear about.
well, russia is saying all is good, and Turkey is saying all is good. so all is good. sarcasm out!!!