On February 25, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies started a ground phase of their operation against militants in the Eastern Ghouta region, near Damascus. Since the start of the operation, government forces had liberated the locations of Nashabiyah, Hazrama, Tal Farzat and Salehiya and repelled an attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) in the northern part of the pocket.
Militants destroyed at least one armored bulldozer and claimed that they had killed 25 pro-government fighters in the recent clashes. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham, Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam will be the main opponents of the SAA if it seeks to capture entire Eastern Ghouta.
On February 24, the UN Security Council passed a resolution seeking to establish a comprehensive ceasefire throughout Syria. However, the ceasefire excludes ISIS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other terrorist groups. Despite this, the mainstream media has already started pushing an idea that the SAA’s operations against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Eastern Ghouta violate the resolution.
ISIS attacked positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the western part of the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus. The terrorist group will likely make an attempt to use the violence in the Damascus countryside to expand own influence in the area.
Meanwhile, in northern Syria, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) captured over 8 locations expanding their control north and northwest of the city of Afrin.
According to pro-Turkish sources, the TAF and the FSA have recently neutralized over 50 members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). In turn, pro-Kurdish sources claimed that over 35 TAF soldiers and FSA members had been killed by the YPG.
A limited deployment of government forces in the Afrin area has not been able to stop the Turkish operation against the YPG. If Damascus and the YPG really want to limit the Turkish expansion in the area, they will have to reach a broad deal over Afrin.
On the other hand, Ankara describes the YPG as a terrorist group and claims that any side assisting it will become a target of the TAF.
Turkey, driving the factions in Syria into each others arms against a common and universally reviled enemy.
Nice work Erdogan. Muppet.
He is not a muppet. I think it is naïve to think that this development was not planned.
The UNSC resolution of 24 February is typical of US tactics. There was never a mention of any ceasefire or truce in the preceding years of this war, as long as Syria was losing the fight all was normal and the tens of thousands of civilian and Syrian Army dead was, and is, collateral damage in regards to the civilians and the subject of gleeful reports about the dead soldiers in west and not so west media.
Enter Russia by invitation of the legally elected Syrian Government and with hard work and hard fighting the tide has turned in Syrian favor. As is typical of us/nato, when their proxies start to lose it’s time for a ceasefire or truce ‘for humanitarian reasons’, witness to an extent the same drill twice in Novorossiya. It didn’t work in Novorossiya and it won’t work in Syria, either, all it does is give the bad guys a breather to rearm and fill out their decimated units for another round of fighting. Russia in the UNSC meeting apparently demanded and got a couple of carefully thought out modifications to the resolution which allowed the avowed war against the terrorists to continue.
Expect a full court press against Russia and Syria by the west media fops but as the old saying goes, the dogs bark and the caravan moves onward. What no one in the west has bothered to mention is neither US nor any nato country declared war on Syria nor do they have a UN mandate for their ‘anti terror’ campaign in the Syrian Arab Republik. Therefore, anyone involved in this war, and it is a war against Syrian Arab Republik, is guilty of war crimes which can, and should be, prosecuted under international law. This guilt extends from the top commanders of any country that sent material aid to the enemies of Syrian Arab Republik or participated in any way in armed hostilities against the Republik down to the boys who check the tire pressure in the aircraft involved in this illegal war and everyone in between. The precedent is what was done to Germany, Italy and Japan after the second active phase of the 1914 war. I don’t know if I will live long enough to see these war crimes trials come to pass, I’m not young now, but I would dearly like to live long enough to at least see them start.
Auslander
Author
Sevastopol, The Third Defense. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079KRPLS4 Book 1, A Premonition, The Move South
Never The Last One https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK A Deep Look In To Russia, Her Culture And Her Armed Forces
Thank you Auslander
I try and tell people here in the US about our dirty hands in Syria and in Crimea the Donbass region, and I am going to print this out. Your reply is better than I have been able to manage on the fly. Thanks.