Syrian War Report – August 4, 2016: Militant Advance Lost Momentum in Aleppo

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Reports appear that over 380 Jaish al Fateh and Fatah Halab militants, including 11 commanders, have been killed in clashes with the Syrian army since the start of militant offensive in Aleppo city 5 days ago. The militants also lost 11 military vehicles, 2 operation rooms and a command centre in Saraqeb. In total, over 30 militant commanders and warlords of various jihadi factions were killed in past few days while the total militant force that participated in the clashes at Aleppo city was estimated as 9,000. A significant part of these casualties is result of the joint Russian and Syrian air strikes in the southern and western parts of Aleppo city.

The Syrian and Russian Air Forces have been carrying out massive air raids in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, including the areas of Old Aleppo, Bustan al-Qasr, Atareb, Khan Assal, Mansourah, Ma`rata, Zarbeh and Khan Touman. On August 3, a militant logistic convoy was destroyed by Russian warplanes near Atareb. Pro-militant sources claimed that this was a food convoy with civilians. However, the claims cannot be verified, and at least 1 fuel truck was at the photos.

Fresh reports indicate that the joint jihadi forces have halted the attempts to break the Aleppo siege after a series of failed offensives on the Syrian government forces in the area. The jihadists realized the failure of their initial plan and now are preparing a new strategy for Aleppo operations.

In the city of Deir Ezzor, clashes increased on August 2. The ISIS terrorist group launched fresh military operations, pursuing the goal to push the Syrian government forces from this strategic city. Major ISIS attacks were delivered in the areas of Al-Rawad, Heart Hospital and Furat Hotel. Nonetheless, the Syrian army repelled these attacks. Pro-government sources argued that the terrorist group lost some 40 terrorists in these clashes.

On August 3, the Syrian army, supported by the Syrian Arab Air Force, counter-attacked near Furat Hotel, Heart Hospital, Water Resources, Tal Barok and the village of al-Baqaliyeh in the western countryside of Deir Ezzor. Reports said that the Syrian army destroyed 2 ISIS battle tanks, several armored and machinegun-equipped vehicles. As result, the total ISIS casualities raised up to 60 fighters.

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George Washington

FINALLY thank you for covering Deir Ezzor instead of (expletive) Manbij!

kudos to South Front :)

Ram Aryal

there is news about 4th round of rebel offensive, news please.

Redwan

They won’t be successful even in the 587.87th phase. LOL

Death to Israel

Get rekt.

Why is it, when Russians or Europeans fought such wars, they would send in hundreds of thousands or millions like in the First World War into battle, and actually battle.
Instead of wars dragging on.
How can 9,000 terrorist engage against 11,000 Syrian solders, and 380 die from the terrorist?
It’s like both sides are scared and have no duty to perform.
They fire shots sporadically (only hitting buildings and civilians) then they run away to do the very same thing the very next day.
I tittle this war “the war of cowards”
Go fight till you win, or don’t fight at all. This whole war should have been over in less then 30 days, except that every side is to scared to go do what they know they have to do.

Redwan

The Russians said 800 terrorists were killed two days ago.

FkDahl

380 KIA , or the Russian estimate of 800 are signs of significant battle. Keep in mind wounded usually outnumber the killed by a factor 3-10 (the higher factor with good US style helicopter medevac). If we imagine 500 killed , and 2000 wounded that is enough to render a division size force of 10 000 non combat capable for offensive operations.

That being said a lot of the combat in Syria has been company sized engagements with total casualties a far cry from the Eastern Front of WW2

hmm

Do you have any idea what are you talking about or just trolling? American civil war lasted for 4 years, without (almost) any meddling of foreign powers. Sino-japanese war lasted from ’37-45. Ever heard of Thirty-years war? No?

Real Anti-Racist Action

Civil War= no cars or fast moving devices. 99% of solders walked barefoot fighting from New Mexico to Pennsylvanian. From Virginia to Florida and all the way over.
My comment was not relevant to pre-air warfare days.
Or warfare where one opposing side has an island ie(Japan)
But where all enemy combatants are less then 300 miles apart from each-other for a 6 year period with unlimited motorized transportation, and air power and missiles.
The proof is in the numbers. This is a very odd war that drags on cause of both sides refusal to engage in 30 hour assaults that always result in the breaking of one sides back.
By The Way, this information I bring you about hot to actually fight and win a war is brought to you by the master of war. -Sun Tzu

Manuel Chrut

It seems you don’t understand a lot about the war in Syria. First of all, it’s not a regular war fought between two nations or a civil war, but rather a hybrid war between what’s left of one nation against multiple mercenary/terrorist groups that are being supported from abroad. These groups don’t adhere to international laws, Geneva conventions or even respect human rights. Syrian army is under pressure to follow these, which puts them at a disadvantage.

The mercenaries hide amongst civilian population, making it very difficult for the Syrian army to attack without causing massive civilian casualties — casualties of their own people. Not to mention that if they would ignore civilian casualties, they would be losing a lot of domestic support. With a large portion of the population having fled the country and another large portion being unavailable held hostage in the occupied areas, they are in desperate need of any support they can get.

Another thing to realise is that those supporting the terrorists in Syria don’t need to win quickly, they just want to win eventually and at the same time minimise their expenses. They deploy just enough manpower and equipment to keep the conflict going. When their proxy armies are close to losing something important, they increase the reinforcement rate. Because of this the war will be dragging on for some more time, simply because this situation suits the aggressors.

As for the soldier numbers, according to Wikipedia Syria’s population is around 17 million. I don’t know if this is with or without the people who have fled the country, it is still quite small compared to the Western Europe’s countries in 1930s. There simply isn’t enough people in the region to field such massive armies like in WWII, not to mention equipment, supplies and infrastructure.

Now about the actual fighting… How exactly do you imagine they should fight? In Aleppo it’s urban warfare, which means that in every window, around every corner, behind each pile of debris, there are several soldiers armed with automatic weapons. Armoured vehicles cover the streets. Snipers everywhere. Urban warfare is a slow and painful mess. Should one side just charge through that en masse, only to be mowed down to a man? No one will do that so the only other option is to advance slowly and carefully, take the town district after district. And because of that, the casualties are lower than one would expect .. actually even 300-400 in couple of days is a lot. And that’s only dead I believe.

That first quote from Sun Tzu is about battles, not wars.

farouk

You are also forgetting the war is sponsored by the US and Israel. They don’t want the terrorist to win. They want them to create havoc to cause Syria to disintegrate into 4-5 warring statelets.
1. A Kurdish state in the North
2. A Jihadi republic in the East
3. A Secular state in the center around Damascus, Aleppo and the South
4. A “moderate” Jihadi hinterland
5. An Alavite state in Latakia
a. The chaos would make it easier for Israel to claim Golan permanently
b. Put pressure on Hezbollah to defend its flanks
c. Allow a oil pipeline to Turkey blocking the threat of Iran closing the gulf and allow an gas embargo against Russia
d. pressure the Shia govt of Iraq and keep it in the US orbit
they have other goals but those are the main ones.

Manuel Chrut

You’re right and that’s what I meant by “war will be dragging on for some more time, simply because this situation suits the aggressors”. I felt that my comment was long enough to go into any more details :)

farouk

Yes. It was pretty obvious from early on the US didn’t want a MOB takeover or even a superficial secular swap. This could have been with a combination of military (read jihadi) pressure and elections.

“Hassan Nasrullah actually called them out early.” They wanted a long drawn out bloody atrocity filled war, which would raise tensions between Arab Sunni and Shia and give Israel an opportunity to normalize ties to counter the Shia “threat,” and break Syria up

jj

380 out of 9,000 is 4.2%. That is not so bad – at that rate the jihadists would be obliterated within 25 days, though I know this rate will not be continuous but sporadic, which will stretch the time out by a multiple factor.