Two pockets full of Terrorists in north-western Syria.
As Breaking News reported, Syrian military sources have already hinted in the past week that the Syrian Arab army (SAA) is convinced about the fact that the anti-terror fight will see a significant improvement of the situation by the end of the year, especially in the Syrian city of Aleppo (Halab).
Indeed, the Syrian army was already able to reach a significant improvement in the military situation in northwest Syria in recent months.
The essentially efforts of the Syrian Arab army were thereby the safety and protection of three important supply roads:
1 The southern Aleppo bypass road from the airport in the south east of Aleppo to the bastions of the government in the west of Aleppo.
2 The supply route through the desert, which leads from Homs over Salamiyah and Khanasser to the southern ring road of Aleppo.
3 The highway from Lattakia along Jisr al-Shughur to Ariha and from there further the country road to Idlib.
These three road links had been interrupted by the terrorists, who are fighting against Syria, at the beginning of this year, and the cities of Idlib and Aleppo were so surrounded by terrorists. The terrorists, which are fighting against Syria, have in the knowledge of the fact that these roads can be war-deciding in terms of the North of Syria tried by all their available means, from mortar shelling to the blowing up of bridges, to make these roads impassable.
But the Syrian army remained intractable and over the course of several months, the Syrian army has managed to make these connections passable again, and so to break the terrorist blockade of the big cities Idlib and Aleppo and, although detours had to be driven, to restore the reasonably safe supply routes on the land route from Damascus to Idlib and Aleppo
The protection of makeshift supply lines over indirections through the mountains (Idlib) or through the desert (Aleppo) makes initially a very defensive impression. In recent weeks, the Syrian army has been increasingly busy with the attempts to expand the security zone along the three major supply routes and also to eliminate one terrorist nest after another, which are not directly located nearby the roads, but which are one or some more kilometres away from the streets.
A typical example of these activities is the liberation of the Syrian village of Kafr Najd on Saturday. Kafr Najd is located about a mile in the west of Ariha, and not directly located on the route Lattakia – Ariha – Idlib, but still close enough that terrorists could be able to launch attacks from there on the supply line to Idlib.
The defensive benefits of the expanding of the security zones along the supply routes to Idlib and Aleppo is immediately obvious: when no armed terrorists even comes close to the supply routes in order to bombard them or to secretly plant bombs on them, then the supply of Idlib and Aleppo becomes safer and can be run with less troubles.
The with wide safety zones padded supply routes to Aleppo (Halab) and Idlib also offer the potential for a decisive offensive. When the armed terrorists are no more able to come close to these supply routes, this means by an implication, that the supply routes of the terrorist gangs, which cross the supply routes of the Syrian army, are cut through.
A glance at a map in which the supply routes of the Army of Idlib and Aleppo are marked on the map as wide barriers, shows the effect.
So, a huge pocket originates by the wide secured supply lines to Idlib and Aleppo by the Syrian army from Idlib over Lattakia (Latakia), Tartous, Homs, Salamiyah, and Khanasser to the city of Aleppo. The only opening of the pocket, which still remains for the terrorists in order to supply all terrorist nests located in this pocket with supplies from abroad, is the about 40-kilometer-wide opening between Idlib and Aleppo.
In case that the Syrian army blocks this opening of the pocket, for instance by restoring the safety on the motorway sections Ariha – Sarakib and Saraki – Aleppo or regains the control above the further north road link between Idlib and Aleppo and bolsters it so wide that the crossing of this connection for the supplies for the terrorists is no longer possible, then the Syrian army has at the same time surrounded all the terrorist strongholds located in the north-western Syrian heartland and also cut them off from the supplies by Turkey. The Syrian army is able to shrink and clean this terrorist pocket piece by piece, much as they did it with the terrorists’ nests in the area of Quseir.
This pocket is already itself able to break the back bone of the terrorist groups, which are supported by Israel, the NATO- and GCC-states.
However, there is still a second terrorist pocket, although geographically much smaller, but in regards of the greater density of development at least as important: namely, the south of Aleppo.
By the securing and bolstering of the southern ring road of Aleppo by the Syrian army, the only supply line that remains or the terror groups, which are active in the south east of Aleppo, in the east of Aleppo from a not even a kilometre wide corridor.
In case the Syrian army closes this connections, for example by the occupation of the few blocks, which are lying between the citadel in the centre of Aleppo and Aziza in the southwest of Aleppo, or even by regaining the control above the slip road from Sakhour to the airport, then the Syrian army would surround the majority of the in Aleppo operating terrorist gangs and cut off their supply routes from abroad.
Given the situation that it is only about a few blocks in these areas, this should be militarily, as the fall of Khalidiya in Homs has already shown, not an insurmountable problem for the Syrian army. In the case that the terrorists will lose the here shown “pockets”, then the Syrian army has practically regained the control above the whole west of Syria – an area, in which about 85% of the Syrian population live.
The closing, clearing and the shrinking of the both here shown terrorist pockets should be, in the opinion of the blogger and author (link below), probably the events, which are to expect as the upcoming successes by the Syrian army in the anti-terror war in north-western Syria by the end of the year. The result is probably that the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo are largely again under the control of the Syrian government till the end of this year.
Source: nocheinparteibuch
Looks good. Personally, I’ll be a lot easier in my mind when Aleppo is completely liberated. The Idlib guerilla corridor – – hm – – 25 miles wide? I’d guess that most of that width is not suited for any road transport, off highway. SAA operations should put the guerillas between the hammer and the anvil, then hammer ’em into dust. Good. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. I’m really impressed with SAA urban warfare skills. That’s stuff that can only be learned the hard way, even with veterans alongside. It’s really good that SAA doesn’t have to deal with triple canopy jungle and monsoon rain that’s all water, and little air.
Note to SAA:, ‘Go thou forth, therefore, and kill rats.’
Good job, MK :-)
MK, you have a sadistic streak that is troubling; you slipped in that link to the Deutsche sprache blog knowing, I say KNOWING, that I’d just HAVE to print it, dig out my Langenscheid and spend the next week trying to parse it. You are a sly, tricky devil. Good grief!
This is really great info and maps were extremely helpful to understand the dimension of the challenges ahead of SAA, it does sound double and timing until year end seems reasonable, momentum is with SAA.