Syrian Army Suffers Casualties In Daraa. Militants Attack Russian-Turkish Patrol
The security situation has been escalating in southern Syria. Over the past 24 hours, at least 3 pro-government fighters and a civilian have been killed in attacks by gunmen in al-Musayfrah and Saida-al-Taebah. The attacks followed the March 14 and March 13 protests that erupted in the town of Tafas and in the southern part of Daraa’s city center, Daraa al-Balad.
A portion of the locals previously affiliated with militant groups defeated in southern Syria was protesting against the recent deployment of the Syrian Army reinforcements to the province. The attempts of the Syrian Army and security forces to restore law and order find no understanding among supporters of radicals.
At the same time, the very same group of persons does not see anything wrong in the recent series of assassinations and attacks on Syrian troops and security personnel. At least 14 people have been reportedly killed in these attacks since the start of May. In these conditions, Syrian forces have no other option, but to launch a series of combing operations to track and neutralize terrorists that still hide in the province.
Fresh videos from the province demonstrate the increased presence of Syrian troops in the villages of Ibtta, Khirbet Ghazaleh and the city of Daraa. The deployed reinforcements included T-72 battle tanks and other heavy military equipment.
On May 14, a strike by an unidentified unmanned combat aerial vehicle destroyed a vehicle and injured 4 fighters of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham near the town of Sarmin in southern Idlib. The strike took place just a few hours after a joint Russian-Turkish patrol on the M4 highway, between the towns of Saraqib and Arihah.
This was the 11th joint patrol conducted by the sides in the framework of the March de-escalation agreement and the third extended patrol since the removal of a camp of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham supporters from the north of Nayrab. The patrol was faced by a new round of protests by Idlib radicals but they did not try to block or attack it.
Contrary to this, the previous such patrol, held on May 12, was marked by a military incident involving Hayat Tahrir al-Sham supporters. An improvised explosive device detonated just near a patrol when it reached the roundabout at the eastern entrance to Arihah.
The attack did not cause casualties and both the Turkish and Russian sides successfully ignored it in their reports on the joint patrolling. However, the May 14 events demonstrated that the attack did not go unanswered.
A series of mysterious drone strikes in Greater Idlib started in early April and since then led to the killing of over a dozen fighters and field commanders. Maher Kojak, the most prominent TOW missile operator, that reportedly participated in about 150 TOW strikes, was among the eliminated militants.
Opposition sources often claim that the strikes were carried by Iran or Russia. However, the targeting pattern and the timing of strikes indicate that Ankara may have been slowly eliminating the segment of its proxies that do not like its rapprochement with Moscow and try to sabotage the Russian-Turkish de-escalation agreement.
The US-led coalition and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue their series of anti-ISIS raids on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. According to the SDF, two ISIS members blew themselves up during the recent raid in eastern Deir Ezzor. Despite all these efforts, ISIS cells remain very active in the area, especially near the US-controlled Omar oil fields.
The Daraa region is where the Israelis have nurtured proxies for years, long before the war began.
All it takes is a some shekels to stir the crazies.
As for the elimination of key takfiri leadership, especially among al Nusra, Russia specializes in locating and targeting these exemplars. If the liquidations of the top tiers isn’t enough, then the aerospace bombers attack and clusters of the scum are incinerated with thermobaric munitions.
The US, Israel and Qatar cannot stop their warmongering against Syria. It is their game plan to churn the war for many more years. The Americans think they are tying down the Russians in a quagmire. The Israelis only know how to kill others. It is their national mission. Bloodletting becomes them.
Right now the counter-strategy is to kill the proxies. That won’t stop the war.
At some point, a truly painful loss or cumulative losses has to be the price for the sponsors of the war.
It’s possible Russia is loosing it’s taste for Syria and US’s strategy has shifted from winning to making Russia loose, somehow.
Here’s a take that might not sit well with many here…
https://indianpunchline.com/russia-makes-a-botch-of-its-syrian-alliance/
To paraphrase a famous playwright, Ignorance Becomes You. Thus, your dubious moniker.
Russia has profound Syrian interests, geopolitically, national security, militarily, and economically, as well as culturally, religion-based, all atop a long historical connection.
“Losing its taste” (correcting your misspell), is ludicrous as only a troll such as you might suggest.
As for Mr. MK M. the author of the linked piece you send us to, here is his inane statement:
“The Kremlin, on the contrary, has multiple goals, including objectives that are unrelated to the Syrian situation. These range from vanquishing the terrorist groups that include extremist elements from Russia’s restive Muslim population to Russia’s resurgence as a military power with capability to fight expeditionary wars.”
Fighting terrorists is unrelated to the Syrian situation?????????
How f*cking stupid can one sentence mark a man? In his case it marks you too.
I don’t need to go further, do I?
Just for the record, Assad has permitted every move Russia has wanted to make. He may want more or other, he may not have the same patience as the Russian General Staff and the Kremlin, but he has granted 50 year leases for the two bases and granted Russia #1 in line for Reconstruction contracts. #1, not behind Iran, nor behind China. Front of the line. He honors the Russian blood spilled on Syrian soil.
As for the Indian commentator, I would trust him for nothing. He, like most of his kind, drive wedges, carry water for the US, and parade as ‘neutrals’. We have seen 80 years of this stuff ooze out of India.
Especially, think of how the USSR and Russia have such close, intimate military ties, even co-producing weapons.
So, when an expert writes such stuff, be aware.
“Moscow’s bad faith can only tarnish its reputation in the Arab bazaar. Running with the hare and hunting with the hound never presents a pleasant sight to the audience, especially when a great power resorts to it.”
The mud has been slung by the Indian.
The botch, is on you, An********.
Thanks for shooting that one down Larchmonter!
It’s an interesting exercise in how to create a wishful thinking narrative. Mr. Bhadrukamur ‘s “journalism” consists of lifting a quote from one single Syrian MP and one single Russian diplomat. Then he adds hyperlinks from a Turkish state channel supporting these viewpoints, packaging it all up with sophisticated language and presenting it as the dominant narrative in Syria and Russia…
Mod: Cool it off guys. Please re-read moderation rule #2. “You are welcome to criticize and even attack ideas but not people”
I brought it to this site’s attention. That does not make a troll. Get off your high horse and take it for what it is. If the links in that blog are not substantial enough, then you’re just biased like the rest of us. russiancouncil.ru like Global Times or Rand Institute or Hudson Institute a mouth piece of the govt. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Anonymous 1:5., Wonderful fiction and pie in the sky desires and veiled threats to Russia. You posted the link with the punchline “Here’s a take that might not sit well with many here…” which in and of itself is an invitation to confrontation.
Having read what you posted twice, I see the same wishful thinking that emanates from the atlanticists who are tolerated around Moskau but who have precisely zero power anywhere in Russia and the starry eyed fools inhabiting the beltway around DC.
Here’s the bottom line. President Assad asked President Putin for help at the time when President Assad had roughly a week to ten days to survive before the war was totally lost and undoubtedly his and his family’s lives lost. President Putin responded with alacrity and within literally but a few weeks the bad guys got the puppy snot beaten out of them, ‘bad guys’ meaning the terrorists, and that’s precisely what they are, terrorists, as are their American, Brit and French controllers and enablers, which by the by brands each and every serving American, Brit, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish soldier, sailor and airman who had anything what so ever to do with the operation to support the head chopping terrorists as war criminals.
That being said, by all means post more of your drivel. I need a good laugh from time to time and you, sir, surely supplied me with today’s belly laugh. Have a wonderful day, my dear one.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One, ebook edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
Sevastopol, The Third Defense. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079KRPLS4 Book 1, A Premonition, The Move South. Set against a backdrop of real events and real places, the reader is left to filter fact from fiction.
Bhaderakumar used to be a decent journalist years ago, not any longer. I stopped taking him seriously when he claimed (years ago) that Assad (and Russia) would be thrown out of Syria.
this is going to go and drag for decades, same as in Ukraine. Assad/Russia/Iran will NOT be allowed to declare full win by USA/NATO/West. Recently USA envoy for Syria openly admitted USA is in there to cause chaos for Russia.
And it will get much worse with Israel eventually openly attacking Syria; Israel has vowed to remove Iranian forces from Syria within a year; let’s see how Russia respond to that.
Putin’s problem is that he is trying to please everyone: Iran/Syria/Turkey and Israel at the same time; he will end up pleasing nobody.
For all the silly bravado that Assad has won and the war is over, nothing is further from the truth. For now the Syria situation is at best described as a stalemate. Russia is too wary to make any major movies against USA and USA knows that and uses it to their full advantage. Let’s try to be honest here: Both Israel and Turkey will continue to do what they feel like it while Russia basically sits back and lets them.
The situation will surely escalates when Israel annexes the West bank in the summer; how do we think Iran will respond? This is clearly anther Israel provocation toward Iran.
Either Putin decided to fully commit or he is better off to quit and go home. This half in isnt helping nobody: neither Syria or Iran or Russia.
@Hoyeru,
If you were more than a Johnny come Lately, you’d know I wrote two years ago warning the US was staying and would lead an insurgency against the Syrian government. It’s no surprise except to you and others who troll us over Putin and Russia.
Amateurish stuff that needs a big Watermark over it: Same Old Crap!
Russia has crafted a strategy that requires Erdogan to play out his hand with the Kurds and with the terrorists, and Israel to stand off and fire generally meaningless missiles toward Iranian caches, most of which get shot down.
If Israel errs and hits Russians or decides it has to hit Syrian troops, it will be shut out of the range of its AF weapons. Those parameters were set in Moscow, in the Kremlin with Bibi on his knees begging.
You just can’t imagine Russia capable of twisting Bibi’s tits like that. But that’s the score.
There is no knowledgeable person who thinks for one second that Putin is indecisive or hasn’t planned for what is going down inside Syria.
I’m betting you think he will fail with the winter Olympics and World Cup. Oh, wait, they were enormous successes.
Or, he really screwed up the oil market. Oh, wait, Saudi Arabia has lost market share. China is buying Russian. Ural oil, not Saudi crude. And, oh wait, the America shale industry is in the toilet, 50% of the rigs shut forever and the rest of them in deep debt to banks. Guess Putin won that too.
To be more blunt than usually, because, as you might know, I have no patience with dolts. It’s just gas you post. Odious.
the common thread used by the trolls you correctly school is that israel, the usa and qatar all have ”’time” on their side to annoy and make a bad situation worse for the russians and syrians.
if the last 2 months has demonstrated anything…. to all…. but the most ideologically obtuse, it is the west in this case the usa and europe does NOT have time on it side, economically, financially, socially, politically even morally to prosecute a long term campaign against anyone.
between the internecine warfare going on within the united states between the radical left in the democratic party to destroy the economy then rebuild it into some naive airy fairy green new deal zero carbon……using the over hyped covid as the cudgel and the more reality based rest of the nation who grasps correctly if the economy does not reopen ;;;soon;;; the suffering will be planetary compared to the small time death rate from this bad flu america is fast running out of any effective means to push the world around for much longer.
the fast metastizing theme in washington decouple from china and re orient critical manufacturing domestically maybe a bridge to far to pull off before the clock runs out on the dollars stamina.
putin emblematic as a proxy for the state of the russian balance sheet in all respects has all the time in the world in which to execute his game plan unperturbed by a collapsing financial, economic,social and moral infrastructure his western enemies must contend.
if anything it is the west in dire need of a hail mary.
as for israel they survive in their present format not much beyond a fortnight after the washingtons power and the american economy falls off a cliff. the israelis are in literary terms, the blance dubois’s of the world, it has been mostly the ameican taxpayng stranger that kept blance ””’off the street””’ all these decades.
It will go on for decades unless Russia and allies start to get ugly,screw ceasefires,they have cost many Syrian lives an sooner or later more Russians will die,the turks were allowed to bring troops into Syria and set up bases,the Americans have done the same east of the Euphretes,why has the border from Turkey not been bombed 24/7 where hundreds of trucks from Turkey have gone into Syria for years?
I quail at the thought of commenting where Larchmonter has already drawn the line, but this comment irritated me. And having lived among Brits, I do know a way to really insult them. It is this: change your handle from “Englishman” to “American”. You share with my countrymen the inability to think long term and play the long game.
The alternate name for Pindostan is “Disneyland”. It is all fantasy where every wish comes true. If you are unhappy with some fact, hold your breath and stamp your feet until you get your way. Smashing toys is an approved tactic.
Well its one thing thinking long term and not thinking at all,many in Syria can’t wait for long term they are dead,just before the last ceasefire the terrorists were being routed and the SAA were on their way to Idlib City,rat central,they could have gone all the way with Russian air cover,but no they had another stupid ceasefire,and its cost lives and will cost more before its over.
I think its foolish to try to out guess Putin and his inner military circle, for they have not the only the next move planned but the next five or six after, for that’s the way the Russian mind works which is foreign to the Western mind where if they can just plan the next move without screwing up they consider themselves lucky.!!!!
The Turkish border has not (yet) been “bombed 24/7 ” because Turkey had initially agreed to kindly remove their rabid, bloodthirsty terrorists from Idlib, of which there are several thousands, in an orderly, peaceful manner. This was in order to avoid bloodshed.
Clearly this has not happened and next steps are now required, whatever they may be…
Serbian girl,
Don’t forget a few months back, the Turk regular troops were hit hard from the air. Russia and Syria paid them a stern less. I think the Turks lost 35 men. Erdogan had to create a cover story so his people didn’t think he was starting a war he could never win with Russia.
It was after that the new joint patrol of Highway M4 began, Russian MPs with Turkish Troops.
Absolutely! Russia has achieved a lot and still has many cards to play in order to advance it’s goals, even with Erdogan.
That border has not been bombed at all in the years since this started.
ISIS terrorists confess that they have carried out many operations in coordination with US occupation forces in al-Tanf base
http://www.syriatimes.sy/index.php/news/local/48549-isis-terrorists-confess-that-they-have-carried-out-many-operations-in-coordination-with-us-occupation-forces-in-al-tanf-base?fbclid=IwAR2Wndoo-XhaibwzWd1S8VRAftsUjAEgMHDao6dFpqOiCJ8iEsF82GzN3OI
“The terrorists stressed that they were receiving orders from US occupation forces in al-Tanf area. These occupation forces were ordering ISIS ringleader Hasan Alqam al-Jazrawi of Saudi nationality, to target Syrian army’ units, Palmyra, T4 airbase, oil fields in Palmyra region.
One of the terrorists said:
“A person closed to al-Jezrawi, his name was Hasan al-Wali, told me that he met Americans in al-Tanf base and they told him that we must attack Palmyra region and the T4 airbase and they will provide us with rocket launchers, guns, money, cars and drones. They downlaoded Tag program on their mobiles to observe the movements of the Syrian army. Al-Jazrawi said that he will do that but he needs time to bring fighters from Euphrates region because the current number is not enough”.
The terrorists asserted that there is coordination between ISIS ringleaders and the ringleaders of ” Maghawer al-Thawra” which is affiliated to the so-called the “Free army” in the vicinity of al-Tanf base.
The terrorists were ordered to keep in touch with their ringleaders in order to go in and out the base.
One of the terrorists admitted that the US and SDF forces covered their move from Raqqa towards Der Ezzour.
The terrorists affirmed that three ISIS members : Abo Sofyan al-Jazrawi, Abo Jnid al-Halabi and Abo Brahim al-Demashqi, who were in charge of financial management in Badia, were going every month to al-Tanf base to bring 3 trucks loaded with food, weapons and money to be distributed among ISIS members in Badia region.
Every terrorist gets $100, while ringleaders gets $500 and the military Wali gets $1000.
Al-Tanf base was a safe place for terrorists to receive medical treatment when they were injured.”
Note that the israeli have frequently air attacked the T4 Airbase and the Palmyra region. These terrorists’ statements further confirm there is close co-operation between israel, the usa and the various terrorist groups. It also confirms the terrorists are being directed by american handlers.
Yes its all there,so why the hell is that base still in one piece?you can’t fight a war with one arm tied behind your back.
ISIS terrorists are openly confessing that America is directing and coordinating their terrorist attacks against Syria.
In particular, American occupation troops at al-Tanf military base are ordering ISIS terrorists to attack “Syrian army’ units, Palmyra, T4 airbase, oil fields in Palmyra region.”
ISIS Terrorists Confess They Carried Out Many Operations in Coordination with US Forces in al-Tanf Base
https://syria360.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/isis-terrorists-confess-they-carried-out-many-operations-in-coordination-with-us-forces-in-al-tanf-base/
This example of American state terrorism should be exposed and broadcast around the world.
The best way to tell the story of what the US is doing and has done is with some well placed anti-tank munitions shot into the Sikorsky helos and Black Hawks so the evidence will be there for all to see.
Al Tanf has long deserved the barrage that the Iraq-US base got from Iran.
General Giap never sent a tweet, posted a YouTube video, or gave lecture to the International press on the US war crimes against Vietnam. He killed the Americans by the thousands.
There are many options to achieve the same result.
We see it in Afghanistan. No one knows who is doing the latest bombings and attacks.
Taliban? ISIS? AQ? Haqqani network? Iranian militias?
But the result is the US knows it can’t stay for five more years. And NATO will not be staying for 20 seconds after the US leaves.
But the action there in Afghanistan is what is needed in Syria and Iraq. The US will leave when enough troops die. It has always been that way.
Yes the great General Giap,he wrote the book on how to deal with Colonialists and Imperialist thugs,if that Reich base was wiped off the map i think the US would be out of Syria,one thing they don’t like are body bags going home.
It is as silly of Larchmonter to dismiss Bhadrakumar as just one more Indian as would be dismissal of Larchmonter as just another American. Bhadrakumar is, first of all, an idealistic Indian foreign service officer who took premature retirement just after completing a stint as ambassador to Turkey. He has been using his independence to reshape India’s foreign policy from the outside, to steer India towards peace with Pakistan and China. He is a useful source of sifted and measured official pronouncements from all over the world, especially the Muslim world. But his view has its limitations. He is for example clueless about Obama’s sexuality, as a gay man ‘married’ to a man pretending to be a woman, and what this shows about Obama’s vetting for vulnerability. If Bhadrakumar has got Putin and Russia wrong here, it’s because he’s guided by too superficial a reading. That’s not reason to stop reading his posts.