File image.
Syrian authorities had asked local leaders in Jasim in the western Daraa countryside to expel all wanted terrorists from the town, Syrian opposition sources reported on September 8.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) deployed a large force around Jasim late on August, de-facto imposing a partial siege on the town. Since then, army drones have been conducting reconnaissance missions over the town.
Syrian authorities believe that a number of suspected ISIS members, including senior leaders of the terrorist group, are taking shelter in Jasim.
The authorities’ demands were connived to the local leaders in Jasim by Brigadier General Louay al-Ali, head of the Military Intelligence Division branch in Daraa, who paid a visited to the town on September 8. Jasim leaders denied the presence of any wanted terrorists in the town. However, they said that the army can enter and arrested any such terrorists, if it finds them.
The SAA has been working with the intelligence to hunt down ISIS leaders in Daraa for several weeks now with much success. Three leaders of the terrorist group have been already eliminated in the governorate’s western countryside.
On August 9, Abu Salem al-Iraqi, the general leader of ISIS in Syria’s southern region, was killed in a special operation that took place in the town of Adwan. Later on August 15, Mahmoud Ahmad al-Hallaq, who is known by his nom de guerre “Abu Omar al-Jababi,” was killed in a similar operation in the town of Tafas. Al-Jababi was ISIS’s top military leader in the region. On September 5, Muhammad Iyad Abdul Razzaq, who is also known as “Abu Qassem al-Aqrabawi,” was killed inside his hideout in the town of al-Yadudah in a special operation. Al-Aqrabawi was the terrorist group’s chief of assassinations in the southern region.
The terrorists taking shelter in Jasim will likely meet the same fate their three slain leaders, sooner or later. The SAA will not likely abandon Jasim without neutralizing the terrorists.
Is the leader there protecting them?
Or these terrorists can give up a lost cause. They won’t be getting their promised fiefdoms after all. Maybe it’s time to stop working for the dollar?