Taftanaz airbase, Via Google Earth
Jaysh al-Ahrar, a part of the National Front for Liberation (NFL) coalition, has handed over Taftanaz airbase in the eastern Idlib countryside to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Syrian opposition activists revealed on January 12.
According to the available information, this step was a part of a surrender agreement which the NFL accepted few days ago. The Turkish-backed group will also have to hand over all of its heavy weapons in Idlib to HTS soon.
Taftanaz was among the first airbases, which were captured by anti-government forces during the Syrian war. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda launched the attack on the strategic airbase on April 3, 2012. Within two days, the airbase fell into their hands. Dozens of Syrian service members, including pilots, were killed. Some of them were executed by the FSA.
Last year, Syrian opposition sources said that the airbase will be handed over to Turkey which will deploy troops and helicopters in it. However, this never happened.
Now with HTS in control of this important military position, the influence of Turkish-backed groups in the eastern Idlib countryside has officially ended.
No one here will be surprised – the Idlib agreement is dead.
good news for damas and moscow!!!
Turkish-Backed Militants, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, Al Qaeda, ISIS, call them what you will, they are all as bad as each other.
Assad and the Kurds must come to an agreement and together they should kick the terrorists out of Syria, back to Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan where they came from.
And then send a message, a dead line, to the US to pack it up and move out of the Syrian border or face the consequences.
nope.. nice deam
Seriously, this should hardly come as a surprise as almost 100% of the terrorists of all hues in Syria are controlled, armed and trained by the Turkeys who do Americunt and Zionist bidding. Sheeple forget that Turkey is hardly a independent or free country and has over 30 NATO and Americunt bases including nuclear weapons. Turkeys Anatolian peasants also provide second largest NATO cannon fodder. Turkey is as much a western whore as the Kurds or ISIS proxies.
On a more technical note, the photo of the SAA “strategic base” shows a very primitive layout with a single 1000 meter runway, no hardened pens, blast walls over even basic earth berms to protect the runways and facilities. The SAA has a long way to go before becoming a professional military. The very fact that the Turkish terrorists were able to take over a “major” airbase that had no perimeter security speaks volumes about the poor capability of SAA and no wonder the Zionists have bombed Syria over 200 times with impunity. Syria needs to build a airforce police special forces backed up by armor and rapid deployment forces with helo support or handover security to Hezbollah.
Turkey gas been head deputy for The US for a very long time at least as far back as WWII and unofficially since about 1919.
I am so glad that some people realise that turcoalphabet name -changes mean nothing and are just changing flavours .The “icecreams” are the same in all cases. Vicious , anti -syrian people, israeli-lapping,american-loving ,jihadi , headchopping dogs.
when it is just al qaeda left then turkey, russia, syria can all go in and complete the liberation of idlib
I would think that Russia will again ratchet up the weapons that they use in order to defeat HTS. That appears to be a Russian strategy . Enough force to do the job , without overkill that exposes weapon systems to FUKUS intelligence, that are not necessary to do the job.
I think Russian military would like to act and play a more decisive role in wiping out terrorists in Syria, but Putin’s close ties to Zionists and Jew penetration of Russian government has handicapped them and humiliated them. Sheeple forget that there are almost 2 million pretend Jews from Russia and Ukraine are living in occupied Palestine, who became overnight Jews to get western welfare when the USSR collapsed. Many of them are in leadership positions in the Zionist parasitic entity like the moron Lieberman.These racist AshkeNAZI trash are like the NAZIS or worse in their outlook.
That’s a mith, the Jew penetration of the russian government.
Not really surprising as Jews came into Iberia with the Arabs in big numbers and many converted to Christianity during the Reconquista. In contrast,most AskenazI Jews are descendants of Gentiles who converted to Judaism.
In the end ,it is a person’s culture that define them. Egypt’s Royal family was very much of French and Greek blood. The Greek blood is from a long way back but Froggie converted in about 1830s to Islam. Kemal of Turks was part Donmeh Jew and part Greek converted to Islam. House of Saud and Barzani clan of Kurds both Jewish who converted to Islam ,the latter in last one hundred years or so. Erdogan comes from a long line of turk -hating Pontic Greeks (with Armenians and Assyrians, natives of Asia Minor) who were finally force -converted in the second last wave of forced-conversion in late 1800s. The point? All are horrible vicious Jihadi dogs who bear no relationship to their unconverted relatives.
There’s more, after and before, roman time, visigoths time, 1500’s in Spain that was then Castile and Aragon, but the point is that they were almost all integrated in the portuguese population, at 99,9%.
That Reconciliation Center it’s a terrible psy and political ops machine, more political than psy.
Its about sales as well, they sell a ton of equipment that has performed well on the battlefield. Then they have to market the next load.
USA has been left scratching its head with its finger up its arse as it continues to get out smarted
If you think Turkey will help to liberate Idlib you are mistaken. The Turks are still there and it just means a changeover in turco group taking over.No real change apart from giving an excuse to Russia now to bomb it.
Western MSM has already tried and failed to say al qaeda are the good guys in idlib. Once other factions are removed. its fighting al qaeda, any more fake chem weapons attacks cannot be sold.
If MSM (like white helmets) cant pretend there is a reason for USA to ‘intervene’ idlib gets liberated much quicker. Its all going to hinge on tha last ISIS pocket. then its on with SDF. Or are you going to tell me now Turkey will pass up an opportunity to kill kurds?
Turkey has already helped by selling out all the terrorist proxy forces it was courting.
did you watch southfronts video on the alphabet soup of terrorists in idlib and Turkeys goals?
the one Belt Road initiative is far more attractive to Turkey than USA Military Industrial complex
Russia seems to have negated the effectiveness of the USA’s freakshow of monsters. And the sale of S-400’s to Turkey is going through
Good points. About the only way I believe Turkey will give up territorial gains in Syria will be to still have part of One Belt go through Turkey. It already was anyway before Syria war. So maybe Russia and China scared Erdogan by saying they will reroute it away from Turkey? What you reckon?
i think USA scared erdogan at the start of the war, and Russian military has proven it can hold up against USA aggression. Without the staunch support of Russia, then no way would Turkey go against the americans.
The one Belt road can incorporate turkey, and any other nation that wants a piece of the pie, even USA etc. but the USA want to run that sort of thing, not be part of it.
If Russia hadnt proven they are willing to go head to head with USA, then Turkey would have said sorry, i’m with the other guy with the big stick.
giving Russia and Syria a watertight Western MSM endorsed reason to bomb it… al qaeda
So with resupply from the air, I suppose we will see US British French and Israeli weapons miraculously appearing in Idlib.
They already have, the Americunts via Turkey supplied their terrorist proxies with 2000 tons of weapons, mostly small arms, mines, ATGM and transports. Mostly NATO special forces have special forces embedded with terrorists.
That crossed my mind as well :) HTS will need a lot of constant supply and logistically that can really only come from Turkey.
Joking apart, I cannot see FUKUS being allowed to fly into Idlib and the airfield could easily be cratered every day if necessary.
Obviously.
New Erdogan air base.