The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have launched a fresh military operation against ISIS terrorists in the eastern part of the province of Hama.
In the morning on Wednesday, the SAA and the NDF pushed in the direction of the ISIS-held town of Uqayribat located at the Salamiyah-Palmyra highway, eganing ISIS terorists in the villages of Soha and Kattamlah.
The advance was reportedly ongoing amid multiple airstrikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces.
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Despite an intense fighting, the SAA and the NDF have not been able to make any significant gains so far.
The advance started following a Russian missile strike on ISIS terrorists east of Palmyra. The strike reportedly delivered a major damage to the ISIS manpower and military eqipment in the area.
Even SAA did not made any gains yet, but this should force ISIS to dedicate additional forces to this area from another area and should weaken ISIS defences in area the ISIS took resources and SAA be able to make advances in the area
That or it may compel ISIS to conduct a fighting withdrawal from the Salamiyah-Palmyra highway area, and reinforce the central Palmyra area since that is the primary offensive route for the SAA. Looks like ISIS is doing what the SAA (more specifically units like the Tiger Forces) were doing all this while. Jump from one front to another to stabilise them.
But this “jumps” need the movement of vehicles , weapons and personnel. and the skies are property of Mi8 and Ka52……
Mil Mi-8 is not an attack helicopter, although Syrians upgraded few pieces with modest attack capabilities… More important is the question how did IS move such large number of troops in the last two or three years if the Russians or SyAAF control the skyes? The answer is simple – they don’t control it so firmly as one could think…
A bigger question is how did ISUS move across open desert under the watchful eyes of the anti-ISIS coalition? All the way from Iraq to Syria. They were not bombed because they were moving in the “right” direction.
Finally Russia is using their missiles as must be used. Why are they waiting so long after many month ago used for the first time ? I do not know, but this is very good news, and I hope Russia keep using these missiles much more often.
@ gustavo,
Russian Kalibr missiles are long range [cruise] missiles and aimed at static targets. Russia first makes sure the target is legit, then to hit a large amount of takfiri terrorists and/or their armament in one swoop.
The FUKZUS war machine launches 59 Tomahawk missiles, 23 reach their destined targets [fail rate of over 60%]
Russia has so far, an impeccable record of 100% sure fire hits on pre-programmed targets.
It is always better to be on the offensive surprising the enemy and forcing the enemy to react to your actions on battle grounds you choose where you have the advantage instead of the other way around. In a day or so Syria and Russia will launch multiple attacks from other directions against ISIS as Syria and Russia are going to close off this large ISIS pocket within a weak.
The Syrians are demonstrating an advantage of attrition warfare, that they and their allies have drastically depleted the US head-chopping, heart-eating rapers while shielding Syrian forces from excess casualties. As the pendulum swings, the territorial consequences of these methodical siege warfare tactics become evident and the Syrians come closer to a numerical as well as qualitative advantage. The danger is that the US state bastards try to sabotage the Syrian revival, which makes casualty conservation even more important.
You can see the Russian missile strike here: http://tass.com/defense/948581
To me it looks like they hit the same target with four Kalibr missiles. The first two seem to be normal explosions, the third thermobaric, and I don’t know what the last one was. The site was in a town/city not out in the desert somewhere. Whomever/whatever was there is not anymore. Very accurate. Must have been important to have spent that much money to destroy it unless it was also meant as a warning.
Very nice I hope it goes so fast Fuck them (terrorists) all