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On January 17, snipers of the Turkish-backed Jaysh al-Izza targeted personnel of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in northern Hama. According to the available information, the attack didn’t result in any casualties.
The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that the army responded to the violation of the Russian-Turkish deconfliction agreement by shelling positions of Jaysh al-Izza in the town of Kafr Zita in the opposition-held part of the northern Hama countryside with heavy rockets.
“The strikes killed personnel of the terrorist group and destroyed its equipment and fortified positions,” the state-run news agency’s reporter in Hama said.
The repeated violations of the demilitarized zone agreement by militants have led to a state of instability around Idlib. Facing this situation, the SAA began to mass its elite forces south of the northern governorate.
It’s unclear yet if the army and its allies are planning to launch a military operation to deter the militants. This issue will likely be settled during the Russian-Turkish presidential summit in Moscow next week.
What is going to settled this issue is the growing strength of the SAA, by one way or another, the hard way or the diplomatic way, and this is what Putin and Assad, Russians and Syrians are doing together since 2015.