On February 21, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) captured the villages of Qara Baba, Kirbet Siluki and Vergan from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the Afrin area. Clashes between Turkish forces and the YPG were also reported in Arab Wiran.
On the same day, the second column of government forces reportedly entered the YPG-held part of Afrin under an alleged agreement between Damascus and the YPG. However, this deployment has not impacted the situation on the frontlines so far.
With the establishment of Turkish observation posts at the contact line between the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and militants in eastern Idlib, an active phase of the SAA military operations in the area has come to its end so far. However, so-called moderate rebels have already found an interesting way to spend the time not used to fight the SAA.
On February 19, Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki merged and created a new group entitled the Syrian Liberation Front (SLF). On February 20, the SLF started a series of attacks against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) in southern Idlib and western Aleppo.
By February 22, the SLF had captured the town of Maarrat al-Nu’man as well as the villages of Tramla, Kafr Rumah and Wadi Deif. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had responded and seized the villages of Taked, A’ajel, Bsrton and the al-Furqan housing complex.
The both sides used armoured vehicles and artillery guns in this democratic competition for the influence in the militant-held part of western Syria.
The Syrian military continued deployment of troops and equipment to its positions near the militant-held Eastern Ghouta pocket in eastern Damascus. According to pro-government sources, the ground phase of the operation against militants will likely be started in the coming days.
Russia reportedly deployed four Su-35 multi-role fighters, four Su-25 attack aircraft and an A-50U Airborne Early Warning and Control plane to its Hmeimim airbase. Two Su-57 advanced stealth air superiority fighters were also deployed, according to reports.
Pro-government sources linked the alleged deployment with the expected intensification of the operations against militants in the Damascus countryside as well as the tensions in the Euphrates Valley.
Wael Al Hussaini (10h ago)
Urgent – East Ghouta
Op DamascusSteel will be halted for 4 days starting from tonight. Children, women and men over 60 will be allowed to evacuate.
If this truce came up as a success it will pave the way for farther negotiations, otherwise the military operation will continue.
Summary of the latest events in Afrin and Aleppo:
” Following up from my yesterday’s post on Afrin/northern Aleppo/Aleppo, what we know thus far from confirmed information and facts on the ground:
1) Aleppo
All neighborhoods inside Aleppo city previously held by the SDF has been handed back to the Syrian Government. The city’s Governor has just paid a visit to those areas. By Saturday morning, State’s services and municipalities are expected to move into all these neighbourhoods to clear roads and restore services.
2) Tal Rifaat
One of the largest city in northern Aleppo, is now completely under the SAA, so thus the frontline with the turkish regime backed terrorists.
There was some Turkish backed terrorists shelling SAA positions in Nbul/al Zahraa late today, SAA returned artillery fire. No reports on damage or anything else.
3) Afrin
a) Check points between Afrin Province and Nbul/ al Zahraa under Russian Police.
b) Between 800-1000 Liwa al Baqir heroes (NDF from Nbul / al Zahraa) moved into Afrin and are positioned in Afrin city and Rajo districts.
c) SAA commanders have arrived in Afrin city. Still not clear their role.
d) Locals in Aleppo city neighbourhoods and Afrin city have raised the Syrian flag and sang Syrian songs, many Syrian TV covering the events.
Events today continue to point toward a positive direction with the Syrian Government possible full control of all Afrin Province, same as what happened today in Tal Rifaat, Sheikh Maksud and many other neighbourhoods inside Aleppo city.”
The Su-57 ‘s are clearly air supremacy and interceptors. They are stealth too. 5th generation.
This is clearly a warning to Israel. Russia stands ready to protect its people on the ground in Syria as well as its national security interests.
I am almost certain that Iran has, or is bringing in much sophisticated air defense systems into Syria to thwart Isreali/U.S. intrusion and bombing of Syria.
The Iranians probably gave the Chinese one of the S-300’s they got from Russia, in which the Iranians and Chinese reverse engineered the system and is producing large quantities of them too. Soon, if not already, they will be in the possession of Hezbollah too.
It would be nice if some found their way to the Houthis of Yemen.
On the ground, the U.S. and Israel are sissies and are useless, once the game changes as far as air defense , its all over for the U.S./Israeli ambitions in the Middle-East, and thus the world.
While the U.S. patrols the worlds oceans with 15 or so battle Carrier groups, enforcing and or threatening countries all over the world. China is patrolling the world with enormous amounts of gigantic cargo ships offering mutually beneficial relationships and free trade with countries all over the world.
The OROB Silk Road initiative is a win – win for all of humanity, while Israel and the U.S.(West) want to keep the abysmal status quo of worlds affairs that benefits them alone. Plus war and threats of war non-stop.
Its a losing game, and the 21st century belongs to China, with close cooperation with Russia of course.
Zionist vassal India is also on the wrong side of history, as they seek confrontation and spend so much on their defense, while 900 million citizens live in abject, desperate misery and poverty. India leads the world in suicide rates, because many do not and can not feed their families.
Meanwhile, China has lifted 700 million people out of poverty and has an every increasing and largest middle class in the world. It has modernized itself, built mega-cities and metropolises, and an infrastructure that is the envy of the west. Its going to spend some 20-25 trillion in the next 10 years on the OROB initiative that will link up the freedom loving world . A beautiful, harmonious alternative to what the U.S. (west) and Israel offer or promise to offer.
Also, meanwhile, the U.S. infrastructure is falling apart, with entire cities going completely bankrupt, like the once booming city of Detroit , Michigan. It was once the pride of the U.S , known as ‘Motorcity’. Now it looks like Chernobyl. A fall-out area. Damns are bursting, highways and bridges are crumbling, you name it. Actually, there is an entire region of the U.S. called the ‘rust belt’, because the major cities are decaying. And in 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that the U.S. needs to invest some 4-5 trillion as soon as possible to try and catch up and fix the place, and that’s just to get it back to square one, let alone progress. And instaed, Obama, in 2017 gave the Dept. of Energy and its contractors 1.2 trillion to research and develop battlefield ‘friendly’ nuclear weapons. And the U.S. spends 600+ billion a year on ‘Defense’. Defense from who, or what. Who’s attacking or has attacked the U.S. Al-Qaeda? 9-11 is a hoax. An Israeli scheme and plot to get the U.S. to engage in a region wide war against Arabs and Muslims for the global Jewish agenda’s benefit. For it is Talmudically inspired Jews who control the U.S. . And this control is now complete. This control was announced to the entire world when Trump said that the U.S. will now recognize Jerusalem as Israels eternal capital. This was the Jews way of telling the world that’ we control the U.S., full control and theres nothing anybody is going to do about it. The American people are sleepwalking into a future that will be very similar to the hellish period of the 20th century Soviet Bolshevik(Jewish) Russia. Its already happening. Too bad . I like the American people and feel they don’t deserve this.
Anyways , my rant for this morning having my coffee. Cheers. Salamaat.
America is an island, and just as with the British isles, it too will become an isolated, parochial backwater, that will reap what it tried sowing elsewhere. Stop the ships, sink the empire.
ah,thank you very much for the insightful and honest analysis of the true state of things in the world,…as for the israel control over america,you remind me of a certain parasaititic fungus,can’t recall it’s name but woe unto creatures it uses for convinience,..now the thing lodges itself into the brains of its victim,mostly insects larger than it by magnitudes,disrupt every common sense of the victim and causing it’s victim to do bizarre actions tending to suicide,…while the fungus feast on its brains and multiply,untill the poor foolish victim dies…,my name is Tim from kenya.
the fungus is named cordiceps… affects mainly ants (make them zombie ants) and other insects…
I suppose it is affecting the standard sheeple too …