Photo: Reuters
Shelters and concentration points of terrorists, going to join others in the southern parts of Aleppo on orders of their commanders, were pounded by the Syrian Air Force. As result, terrorists suffered heavy losses, the Fars news agency reported, citing an unnamed battlefield source.
“The Jaish al-Fatah terrorists had just arrived in Idlib from Darayya after reaching an agreement with the Syrian government to leave town in the Damascus countryside and were ordered to join other terrorists in the Southern Aleppo,” the source said on Monday.
According to the source, Syrian aircraft launched air strikes on shelters and gathering points of Jaish al-Fatah terrorists after receiving relevant intelligence data. As some sources announced, the airstrikes resulted in the death of at least 20 terrorists and wounding tens of others.
Jaish al-Fatah terrorists were stationed in the Syrian army officers’ housing complexes which are under the terrorists’ control in Idlib now.
On Monday, Arabic-language media reported, citing unnamed informed local sources, that terrorist groups in the eastern part of Aleppo have been demoralized because their comrades left them to join the battle in the city of Jarabalus near the Turkish border.
“Al-Shamiyeh Front terrorists are very discontent with their commanders for dispatching a large number of their militants to Jarabalus at Turkey’s request,” the sources said
The source noted that morale completely left the terrorists because Jeish al-Fatah members have failed to open a supply line for them through al-Ramousiyeh and have not sent aid to them via the Castillo road, which is currently under the Syrian army control.
If I read this report correctly then it appears to say that terrorists who struck a deal with the SAA and evacuated the Damascus countryside where intercepted on their way to reinforce the Aleppo front. This does rather lend a little support to a point I have made before that these deals are not strategically very sound.
However, where hundreds of terrorists (~700) got free passage to Idlib, some 2,500 SAA troops were freed up for service elsewhere … not perfect, but still not a bad trade-off don’t you think?
Seeing as how the SAA runs away en masse from an enemy that greatly outnumber (Aleppo, Hama now), despite having 2 air forces against none, it’s not the best of trade offs!
Run away or strategic withdrawal? Thousands of militants have been killed in the last month in Aleppo alone (nobody knows how many have wounded). Put simply it’s a fucking meatgrinder.
The SAA is surprisingly, perhaps overly in some cases, cautious. SAA commanders are far more interested in preserving the lives of their men than some short term territorial gain.
Aleppo will go on for a little longer, however, on the Hama front, just you watch … These three or four villages captured by the terrorists will be retaken by the SAA probably within a week. In the end, however many SAA troops died, the number of Jihadist deaths will be three or four times that number … just you see.
“In the end, however many SAA troops died, the number of Jihadist deaths will be three or four times that number … just you see”
Even if we accept this to be fact rather than just optimistic speculation – still the reality remains that the jihadi units keep getting replenished and reinforced from Turkey; AND the jihadis who are surrounded are usually allowed to get out via “deals” or “escape channels” rather than being annihilated. Both of these dynamics combine to ensure that the jihadi manpower is always plentiful, and never decreases to the level where they could not continue the war anymore. Meanwhile, the SAA has serious difficulty replacing its personnel losses.
If the very successful Russo-Syrian offensive in February towards the Turkish border had been allowed to proceed, most or all of the border would have been in SAA hands, the flow of men and materiel to the jihadis would have been stemmed, and the whole war could have been winding down or over by now. Instead, Putin stupidly called a ceasefire on the request of his U.S. “partners” and pulled out most of the Russian air assets!
Optimism … Why do you think the SAA continues to exist after 5.5 years of this crap? It’s very easy for you to sit behind the keyboard and be like “the SAA got this, this, this and this wrong”.
How many times did the SAA retreat from Kinsibba before finally taking it? Who knows, maybe they will lose it again, only to retake it. In the end, if you back a side and you’re not actually at the front, you might as well be optimistic.
All that being said, maybe these Houthis should send a few hundred men to Aleppo.
“…if you back a side and you’re not actually at the front, you might as well be optimistic”
If your aim is to analyze seriously and meaningfully to reach valid conclusions, rather than just “feeling good”, then you have to be realistic and fact-and-logic-based, not “optimistic”, in your analysis. Unwarranted optimism when trying to analyze military-political situations is just self-deception.
This has nothing to do with how far away you are from the front.
Well statements like “They just run away” aren’t very academic.
Putin wants to make money from selling weapons to the Syrians, no weapons manufacturer has anything to gain from ending conflict.
I don’t think Putin’s main motivation in all this is just cynical profit-making. I think that the truth is actually far WORSE than that: I think Putin is afraid that the Western MSM and pro-imperialist liberal-left will use the collateral casualties that are likely to be caused (or ENGINEERED) if he commits the Russian forces to giving proper bombing support to Syrian troops when they attack jihadi-controlled areas, to start a full-blown demonization-propaganda campaign against Russia and himself as “massacring civilians”, “child-killers” etc. That is, he has psychologically surrendered to the enemy’s propaganda-narrative framework and allowed himself to drink the dishonest, one-sided, false-humanitarian Kool Aid peddled by the enemy’s spinmasters and their useful idiots.
Like their gains in Aleppo were retaken right?
It appears so.
How can you say that? Outnumbered but still they continue. Lucky you’re not there.
They’re not outnumbered, that’s a constant lie.
I agree… Letting terrorists get away with “deals”, instead of surrounding and wiping them out, is one of the main reasons why this war keeps getting prolonged on and on.
Good for SAA to panelized the terrorists who try to join their comrades in southern Aleppo.