Illustrative image
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has repelled a ground attack led by al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on its positions in the southeastern Idlib countryside, the commander of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria revealed on January 11.
In an official statement, Maj. Gen. Yuri Borenkov said that the attack, that targeted the town of Jarjanaz on January 10, was launched from the nearby town of Talmenes.
“Up to 200 militants and 30 pickups with large-caliber machine guns were involved in the attack. With point fire from the tanks and artillery of Syrian government forces, the attack was repulsed, the militants returned to their initial positions,” the statement reads.
A day earlier, a source in the SAA told SouthFront that the army foiled a large-scale attack that was planned by HTS and its allies. Artillery and aerial strikes targeted the terrorists while they were amassing near Jarjanaz, said the source.
A new ceasefire on Greater Idlib is set to become active at today’s midnight. The ceasefire was brokered by Russia and Turkey. Once the ceasefire is implemented, the SAA will be opening three humanitarian corridors around the region.
By attempting to launch a large-scale attack before a pre-planned ceasefire, HTS and its allies are demonstrating their hostile attitude. The terrorist groups sabotaged several similar ceasefires over the last year.
Kill the scums
Which scum? As long as US it dirty allies and the storm trooper group Israel exist there can’t be peace.
the ceasefire
Same day, same shit. By 2025 i guess Idlib will be liberated. Then Putins will be out of office. At least he said so.
;)
The bastards don’t deserve any such reprieve!
They UNSC just approved Russia’s Humanity Aid Package for Syria being delivered through two borders. You know most of this “aid” will be feeding and caring for these terrorist gangster factions families.
Ceasefire! I give a “hosing-down”. I anticipate the terrorist gangster factions will continue their violent plans of engagement.
Syrian Armed Forces, Russia and the other Syria allies must stop all this nonsense and put their foot down !!!
Force these thugs to surrender by pounding firepower on them.
Let’s start the “mopping-up” segment of this war.
Very good, congratulation SAA-Russia-Iran-Hezbolah armies.
This conflict has taken so long for two big reasons: Russian ceasefires, and the fact that only a tiny portion of the SAA does any fighting at all. These are the 25th Division (Tiger Forces), the ISIS hunters, Liwa al-quds and the 4th Armored Division.
No one else even tries to fight, HTS captures ground from baseline SAA soldiers who run away from every battle even when outnumbering the enemy, only for the Tiger Forces to recapture those same positions in less than a day. The Syrian air force also does some work, buut they are small even the Russian contingent is quite modest.
Of course, Russia refuses to train the rest of the army so that the war goes on for longer, keeping Syria weak and harmless to Israel.
Running away when heavily outnumbered is a good military tactic.
He was claiming the SAA were outnumbering whoever they were fighting at the time and still they ran away.
Where did you get this information from regarding SAA army?
Assad has a regular army of 200,000, he also has over 100,000 militia fighters loyal to him, but a country of Syria’s population size and wealth should have an army of way less than 50,000 regulars, so most of them just aren’t that good. Give him a gun and a uniform and you’ve got yourself a soldier, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to be a very good soldier, especially if his heart isn’t really in it and he hasn’t been trained either. But the other wankers from the other side are even worse so it evens itself out, the SAA are mostly crap and the terrorists are even worse.
“Of course, Russia refuses to train” Of course, you are biased against Russia like many people here except you don’t sound like usual Russia-hater with hidden agenda and there are plenty of ppl. like that here.
Russia does not refuse anything. Who was “to train”? Russian military contingent is there with special mission and not “to train” there. They did ” train” before (when they came) and now is NORMAL that those that are “trained” start training others. There is no training for those who does not want to have any fighting at all One can’t force those people to fight and no training can change that!
Russian ceasefires HELP civilians to get to the safety and to the Tigers and those few extra who fight to TAKE NEEDED REST. Tigers need more volunteers to replace those wounded and killed but they can’t have them because there is no more volunteers.
So ALL you people lack objectivity to understand that Tigers (as you have said yourself) can’t win this war alone quickly since many (drafted to the) SAA are bad quality low moral soldiers! NO “TRAINING” CAN CHANGE that SAA become more motivated to fight.
It would be niece if Russia would shoot down Israeli/US air planes! It is hard to understand why Russia is talking to the Turkish rogues. What is the plan here? O. K. Turk-Stream is finished and the rogue theft project of Cyprus, Israel, Greece to deliver stolen Lebanese gas to Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea won’t get momentum.
I also would love to see Israeli planes being shot down BUT it is NOT prudent to do this now.
That will come later when the time is right.
“It is hard to understand why Russia is talking to the Turkish rogues. What is the plan here?”
Well it is totally insane “plan” to bring PEACE to Syria! Imagine insane Russians wants “peace”!?! The only country that can shore up Syrian moderate opposition and has their confidence is Sunni Turkey (supporter of terrorism I know but still country capable to have opposition trust) Do not start a speech of usual list of accusations against moderate (terrorist) opposition or Turkey- I KNOW ALL THAT. So Russia wants those who didn’t commit crimes or have escaped out of Syria but are opposition to Assad to see guarantee and direct support of Sunni interests in Syria through Turkey. For honest agreement that would look every-bodies interests. In that “plan” Turkey stops occupation of Syria and goes back to Turkey! Kurds does not have strong autonomy also but are integrated back in united Syria.
Anyone opposing the cease-fire should consider this:
The fact that so many civilians have been squeezed north and west deeper into Idlib is making matters worse for them, Syria, the SAA and Russia *if* they are Syrians and want to return and have their status cleared. The fewer civilians to worry about, the better for SAA and Russian advances. Some don’t want to settle their status or be part of Syria and are not going to use the humanitarian corridors for any reason. Fine – that’s the exact kind of people you want off of Syrian territory and back into Turkey.
Everyone that wants the SAA and RuAF to steamroller through Idlib has to remember it’s like trying to chase a bunch of monkeys with live hand grenades out of your house while your family is still there. You can take care of the monkeys pretty quickly with an AK-47, but you’re not going to have a house, family or legs anymore. Syria and Russia are doing just what they need to do and always planned on doing. They know the head-choppers are going to take advantage of it, yet that hasn’t stopped the SAA or RuAF one bit in their advances. Meat world is a bit more complex and slow than video games.
The ceasefire/humanitarian corridors are the right thing to do now. Of course it will be exploited by the head-choppers, but they’re going to violate the ceasefire anyway. Just enough of a rest for the SAA to reclaim another 20km chunk of land from the head-choppers when battles resume. The SAA will be a half-kilometer from the razorwire on the Turkish border soon enough, picking off fleeing head-choppers or whomever.
I’d like to reply to that since I’m sure I’m one of the people you’re referring to, and I’m not disputing anything you said, in fact I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said completely, but I must offer some qualifications for my normal stance up until right now, and I must also tell you that when these corridors close after 2 days, I want the ground assault to recommence again full steam, though I think keeping them open for a full week would be better, even I can wait that long. Last year the Syrian government reconciled with many of the different opposition factions in northern Hama and southern Idlib, right up until May last year many of the groups fighting the SAA just gave up and rejoined the Syrian government, but since May no other groups have been able to, the terrorists have been stopping them. And up until right now nearly all the humanitarian corridors [bar 2 or 3], all the refugee camps and relocation centres, and social institutions, have been solely controlled by the Turkish Red Crescent and it’s UN affiliated organizations, something Assad has continuously been complaining about, he’s been accusing them of directly assisting the opposition forces with medical care as well as funding, and also saying they favour the anti Assad civilians over the pro government civilians, and even of using them to defend terrorist positions as human shields, only the Turkish Red Crescent sets up refugee camps right next door to fortified rebel positions, great humanitarians aren’t they. So please don’t misunderstand my eagerness for a humanitarian catastrophe, that’s the last thing I want, but if it’s a choice between years of further suffering or a few more days of hell, I honestly think the short option is the best one. Someone linked me a photo of the refugees fleeing over the Turkish border, and like you they wanted the ceasefire applied to supposedly ease civilian suffering, but as I pointed out to him, where are the families in the photo, they’re just mainly adult males, which would normally be the minority of a group of fleeing refugees, so I said to him, where are all the mums and dads, where are all their kids, those people in the photo don’t look like refugees to me, they look more like fleeing terrorists. I can’t work out how to upload the photo so I’ll just link it if you want to check it out for yourself, what do they look like to you, fleeing refugees or terrorists? https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fs3%2Ffiles%2Finline-images%2Fidlibborder.jpg%3Fitok%3DNTjqdeps%3AhlWzZ6jKTjQBr0I5yA-udEXIZpI&cuid=3606370
The people (mostly males) in the photo are from Idlib and went to the border crossing to protest. Turkey closed its crossings to refugees and they want it reopened so they can get out. In the photo, they’re actually fleeing back into Idlib because Turkish troops started using tear gas and rubber bullets to chase them away from the crossing. Most are on motorbikes, so I assume they didn’t expect to cross in to Turkey right at that moment – they just drove up there to protest and decided they didn’t want to be shot/gassed.
The women (at least the ones in Idllib’s Wahhabi Paradise) normally wouldn’t attend such a protest, and can’t go anyway unless their husbands accompany them. That’s problematic for the ones with dead husbands, but they’re still not allowed out unaccompanied in public. To your point, though, the crowds would include many more women and children if Turkey actually had the crossing open. And they would be fleeing the opposite way – away from the camera – INTO Turkey. Similar protests at one of the other Syrian-Turkish border crossings. Erdogan is not budging – no more refugees allowed.
Lower-resolution of the image being discussed: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/817f1b04b013e1ef77401ee620585e325a1e006be5f4d9daf364466e71296cfb.jpg
I’m not so sure you’re right about this image, I think it looks more like this is the Turkish side if the border in the foreground, with a heap of people stacked up at the other side of the gates, the smoke is all on the other side of the gates too, which would suggest that’s the Syrian side where the protests are taking place, and one more fact to question, there are several vehicles stacked up facing us in the background on the far side of the gate, and the Truck in the foreground is facing us too, which suggests to me the vehicles in the background are waiting to get in, not get out, I don’t think they’d be stacked up like that on the way out of Turkey, only to get in.
Do an image search in Google and look at all the associated articles that come up. This image was used in a widely-reported news item for Aug. 30, 2019 about ‘Desperate Syrians storming Turkish border post’.
The protesters rushed the crossing and made it through the gate and a few hundred meters into Turkey, but there’s nothing on the other side for several km. Turkish army reinforcements arrived and were in the process of forcing protesters back to the Syrian side when this photo was taken.
There normally are private commercial trucks waiting to enter Syria with food and goods. Idlib still has to import almosts all of that. Turkey’s prohibition is specifically on Syrian refugees entering Turkey and seeking asylum.
I did as you suggested but it only corroborated my assumption, this is the Turkish side of the border and in the background is Idlib. The story you read may have just used this image for their article.
The original photographer was Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP. Here’s the link to his AFP picture with a caption: [link]
The bab al Hawa crossing is kind of confusing because – on the Syrian side – there’s a kilometer-long customs compound with three of those plain-looking, squarish gates to go through. The Turkish side has a single, distinct, rather elaborate gate. It’s about 500m northwest of the last Syrian gate, but the road curves and dips enough that it’s hidden behind the center column in the picture.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4e998a64b715ae5c138cafe1b24593979108015c332c380d7a73540f3aa4131.png
Go to pages 27 – 29 here to see more pictures by OMAR HAJ KADOUR, RAMI AL SAYED and AAREF WATAD of the protests. They have some pictures of the Turkish gate, too.
Thanks for all the links and the explanation but I’m still confused, if what you originally said is correct,
“Turkey closed its crossings to refugees and they want it reopened so they can get out. In the photo, they’re actually fleeing back into Idlib because Turkish troops started using tear gas and rubber bullets to chase them away from the crossing. Most are on motorbikes, so I assume they didn’t expect to cross in to Turkey right at that moment – they just drove up there to protest and decided they didn’t want to be shot/gassed.”
I just can’t work out why all the smoke is on the Turkish side of the gate. If what you say is correct, it should be on this side of the gate where the protesters are trying to get in, not the Turkish side. But thanks anyway.
The smoke is on the 500m no-man’s-land side of the Syrian gate – protesters never made it through the Turkish gate into Turkey. A few minutes before the picture above was taken, the protesters did go through that last Syrian gate and were well down the 500m no-man-land’s road and almost up to the Turkish gade. Look at their shadows. Photographer was well outside the Syrian gate standing in the no-mans-land road. The sun was past noon at this time – the camera is looking northwest at the outside of the Turkish gate, The antennas in the background are inside Turkey. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80c0fe89a9feecaad28591a13493604c58600ad8e00544890d50b3dfed9304b7.png
Eventually the Turkish troops got cranky and started chasing the Idlib protesters away from the Turkish gate and off of the no-man’s-land road with tear gas fired from the Turkish gate. In the next picture, the photographer has backed up on the no-mans-land road and is still outside the last Syrian gate. Camera is pointing to the west, protesters still on no-mans-land road but are fleeing southeast toward the Syrian gate (somewhere behind the photographer).
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e378b93283b4c0ca20d4da233028af8a6e1ef74aa06e561fcaf06334142863b.png
Minutes later, the photographer (different one) takes a picture below from a few hundred meters INSIDE the Syrian Customs compound, looking northwest out the final Syrian gate. Beyond that is the 500m no-mans-land road and tear-gas clouds. The tear gas was fired 100’s of meters further down that road, but the wind is blowing it towards the Syrian side. Most of the crowd of protesters is still outside the Syrian gate, on the right-hand side of the no-man’s-land road. People at the back end of the crowd are still in the Syrian compound, and fleeing/moving back towards Idlib to the southeast in reaction to what they think is happening further up in no-man’s-land: gunshots and tear gas. Turks eventually clear no-man’s-land of protesters, protesters leave Syrian compound and Turk side resumes limited border crossings – mostly trucks into Syria. No Syrian refugees on the Syrian side are allowed to enter the Turkish gate to get inside Turkey. That’s why they were protesting. The last few years, hundreds of thousands of refugees were allowed inside Turkey, many through this crossing at Bab al-Hawa. Erdogan changed his policy and is taking no more Syrian refugees on Turkish soil. He already has four million in Turkey now that he has to feed. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/817f1b04b013e1ef77401ee620585e325a1e006be5f4d9daf364466e71296cfb.jpg
Ok I’ve finally got it, thanks for the elaborate explanation, it explains why the smoke is where it is, and why you also said the protesters hadn’t made it into Turkey, I didn’t realize the gate in the photo was just one of the first checkpoints on the Syrian side of the border, I wrongly assumed it was the actual border crossing itself and everything this side of the photo Turkish territory. This photo you just pasted is the one I thought we were looking at in the original photo, so it all makes sense now, I appreciate the time and effort you put in to explain it to me, so thank you very much for your patience, SF forums could do with a few more people like you, cheers.
Oh, ALL Americans are like this. You’re welcome, but I’m nothing special. I was just looking for an excuse to post a picture of the crazy awesome Turkish gate. I think I’ll build a full-scale replica in my front yard.
By the way, which country are you from and do you have any gold or oil? What kind of air defenses does your have? You know… just in case you need to be freedomized someday.
[just kidding – please don’t answer. The US Dept. of State probably monitors SF for future targeted nations]
You are a strategist. It’s a lonely place to be amongst the ‘ killem all now ‘ tacticians.
This is why we have officers and other ranks. Both are loyal, both are necessary and both need an effective strategy to live.
We use to have diplomats and military leaders like that in the US – that’s my hazy recollection. Still do have a very few, but not enough to matter.
To me, no single accomplishment has brought Russia more respect than this reconciliation effort. I thought it was absolutely pointless and would never work – that’s not the way the US freedomizes people. If I recall, Assad was initially pretty skeptical too but hoped it might work. And of course the US scoffed and said Russia will never be able to separate the terrorists from disgruntled Syrians.
In hindsight, it turned out to be a masterpiece of diplomacy and military strategy, not only bringing Syria back from the grave (well, close) but also unifying Syrians after what could only be described as a hopeless, permanent, lethal divide.
There will also be a generation, at least, who will never be willing to go back to the period when protection Western backed thuggish racketeers controlled civil society in vast swathes of Syria.
The Promised Land peddled by the US and vassals has been seen to be a river of lies.
In my books this is more than enough to negate any arrangements Putin made with Erdogan, so all bets are off now, only kidding. Get the genuine refugees out out of those Turkish Red Crescent run camps first while we can, and then send all the rest of them to Turkey where they belong.
The terrorists were hoping to score a little victory and more land before the ceasefire. They would then consolidate their gains and when ready, break the ceasefire. The terrorists are losing territory all the time. Soon they will be fish in a barrel.
BREAKING NEWS: 5-10 million Iranian protesters in the streets of Tehran and all major cities demanding the downfall of the Mullah Islamic Regime!