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On Saturday, Suqur Al-Sharqiah, a group of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), captureed the strategic Abu Al-Shamat highway in the Syrian desert.
Suqur Al-Sharqia also started an attack on Al-Mahasah town north of the east Qalamun area in order to break an ISIS siege on Jaish al-Islam in the area.
Meanwhile, Ahmad al-Abdu, another FSA group, captured an ISIS pocket located between the Syrian desert and the northern Suweida countryside. The FSA captured Tal Mallaha, Tal Shahba and Um Qadqad. This advance allowed the FSA to launch the third and a final stage of its operation to reach the Jaish al-Islam-hed area in eastern Qalamun.
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During their last attack Suqur Al Sharqiah capture a T-55 tank from ISIS fighters along with 3 trucks around Al-Mahasah\Mahsnah town .
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FSA now is only 18km away from Jaish Al Islam positions in East Qalamun ,be lifting ISIS siege Jaish Al Islam will be able to reopen it’s old supply roots from Jordan and Iraq ,this could result in more battles soon inside and around Damascus if diplomacy failed .
Why are all SAA front lines here stagnant? Where are all the military advisers? Are they suddenly in bed with FSA, knowing full well that FSA surely will make a move towards Damascus? No attempt to cut them off and prevent their further inroad advances. I simply don’t get it.
The map is miss leading (just small villages and checkpoints in the desert).
FSA is not very strong here and is some what of an ally to Damascus (anti ISUS).
This is the purpose of the HAMA attack to divert SAA resources so the SAA can’t advance in this area. This means the SAA won’t be able to attack Idlib right now and will have to send some forces here to push back this Al Cia Da advance.
The best the SAA can do in HAMA is to regain lost territory and destroy as many terrorists as possible which they are doing. The SAA is advancing on 5 fronts right now which is pretty good and something they could not do last year. the Kurds can’t do that now. Every month the entire SAA is gettiing stronger with Russian training, new equipment, new recruits and battle experience. They should have the entire country liberated a year from now. Hama is good example of this. Israel / Al Cia Da attacked with 10,000 plus men and were repelled within a week with very large casualties. It would not have been like this last year.
No Hama offensive was to save al qaeda and ISIS, ordered by Turks to get back at SAA.
When the dust settles at some distant point in future, Syrian state needs to quietly go about setting Turkey on fire, using proxies and covert aggression.
No the aggression has been ordered by Israel and to a lesser extent by Saudi Arabia . Weaken and threaten Israel and its economy first and Saudi Arabia second and all this aggression will end. You don’t win a fight by trying to punch your opponents fist, you punch them in the face and knock them out and you won’t have any problems with an enemies fists. You can eliminate pawns forever and it never ends as they are replaced by an infinite number of new pawns, capture the king and the game is over you have won.
Major modern ‘civil-wars’, which in reality are always fueled by external actors, last on average around a decade – Lebanon – Yugoslavia etc. For the Syrian state the really serious danger was mid-term throughout 2014-5. When the coalition of NATO/GCC/Israel, lined up against Syria, were pouring resources into conflict at colossal rate. Masses of monthly munitions shipments bought in Bulgaria/ Ukraine and huge influxes of Turkish/ Saudi recruited foreign manpower, in coordinated multiple campaigns.
With the Russian intervention, the militant’s serious multi-front momentum and the imminent threat to Lakatia have been rolled back and stabilized. Now that that isn’t victory, but it halted the serious reversals SAA were experiencing under the full throttle foreign backed onslaught.
It is a grinding conflict, and foreign powers refuse to give up their ambitions. But having survived the perilous period, given the historical, decade long civil-war average, odds now favor Assad and SAA to prevail. That is, going into year seven of this conflict, with the state institutions and SAA intact, the precedents indicate the momentum will remain with them. That said, it obviously remains a slow and long slog ahead for SAA with no shortage of tactical problems and crisis situations.
they will need the best military officers, advisers, and commanders, and us here commenting :D
bro, the jihdists are also diverted. saa MUST take road 90 and all territory up to jordan border. to close the borders is the only way how block the inflow of ammo and manpower for jihadists. this shoud be done already after the first capture of palmyra.
hahaha yes, i remember the first time i came on this site someone commented saying “why is SAA not attacking homs/hama? thats a huge area for the militants, are they at least shelling it?”
Road 90 :P