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According to a statement by the Syrian Ministry of Defense, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) continued fortifying its newly captured positions in the northern Hama countryside. The military claimed that the SAA and its allies destroyed 29 vehicles and 3 tanks belonging to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
The SAA has managed to kill 3 foreign militants from HTS, named Abu Aisha Al Ansari, a Tunisian, and the Saudis Abdullah Abdul Rahman Abu Rabie and Abu Karar Al-Najrani.
The SAA also killed five militants from the Turkistani Islamic Party, Abu Ayyub al-Turkistani, Rival Abu Qatada Taha Hussein al-Matar, Khitab Abdul Jalil Bilal Mustafa al-Saleh, a commander of the Jaish al-Izza, Hajj Juma al-Khalid, and a military commander of the Air Defense Battalion of the Middle Division, Ahmed Ramah Abu Ibrahim.
The Russian Air Force destroyed three arms depots in Idlib countryside.
Internal disputes between militants in the Idlib-Aleppo countryside appeared once again. Accordiing to pro-government sources many militants in western Aleppo had surrendered in exchange for amnesty. Some others rejected the participation with the HTS in the attack on the SAA in the village of Albuwayda.
It is worth mentioning that militants and civilians from the village of Kfaranbouda in the southern Idlib countryside had refused at the beginning of the battle for northern Hama to allow HTS to use their village as a military base in the operation against government forces.
Perfect opportunity to clear Syrian lands from terrorist.
That is still a very long way to go.
I’m glad to see there’s more militants seeking amnesty and refusing to co-operate with HTS. They’re obviously tired of the fighting, don’t want their villages blown up and are leery of HTS taking them over once they arrive in force. HTS has entered villages and towns controlled by local militias then forced them out while keeping their weapons store so there should be plenty of militant fighters who dislike them more than Assad. If Bashar plays his hand right, the SAA may be able to enter those militant areas as liberators and absorb their fighters to assist in the fight against HTS. Their families and neighbors got to be sick and tired of putting up with poor economic conditions so wish to see a return to normalcy, especially if that means regular paychecks from the SAA, a return of consumer goods and everything else that aren’t sold at wildly inflated prices. US intelligence agencies had pointed out some time ago that the Arab countries that were providing financial support for the militants had slowed that down to a trickle since they were more concerned with Yemen and Iran. The same went with wealthy individuals who now saw it as a lost cause. Their monies paid the militias and for the cost of consumer goods plus munitions trucked in from Turkey or smuggled in. The arms smuggling has slowed down considerably since there’s little money to be made now that the militants financing has dried up. Now they want everything as cheap as possible so most smugglers quit the business. This Hama Offensive by the SAA has cost the HTS to expend considerable millions of dollars in munitions plus lost more when their weapon stores are bombed. They don’t have the money to replace those and will soon run out if the fighting is continuous from now on. Erdogan is the only one capable of keeping HTS afloat but that comes with the risk of irritating all Syrians who want to see the war come to an end so will back Assad and the SDF if he tries grabbing more Syrian territory.