By Patrick BAHZAD - situation as of October 16th 2015, 4 pm EDT
As government offensives in the NW of Syria have been met with stiff resistance by various rebels groups, a new operation seems to have started deep inside rebel held territory, around the divided city of Aleppo.
While the ongoing Syrians advances have been mostly marginal so far, they are nonetheless significant in more than one way. In the area furthest South (Rastan enclave), SAA and auxilary units almost managed to cut the rebel held ground in two halves, through a South-North thrust along the M5 highway. North of Hama, government troops are trying to close in rebels by advancing along a line that runs parallel, but behind the rebels' main defense line.
In Ghab plain, Syrian armour was met with fierce ATGM fire, but regained control of a north-south corridor, which opens the way to further advances towards Jisr al-Shughur, a strategic city located along the M4 highway connecting Latakia to Idlib. Most likely, the coming push into Jisr al-Shughur will be the result of a pincer movement, with advances through Ghab plain representing the Eastern flanking move, while the main thrust will come from the South-West, through Ghmam and the M4.
Although both sides could argue they have currently scored some points, tactical developments on the ground do not reflect the military balance of power. In fact, what we are witnessing is a form a attritional warfare along a frontline that stretches from North Hama almost to the Turkish border.
The calculus on the Russian/Syrian/Iranian side is to "bleed" the rebels' manpower and logistics, up to a point where the defences that were put in place in the areas under attack will crumble and collapse. Such a strategy is based on the assumption that losses incurred would be acceptable in comparison to the potential strategic gains that can be achieved.
As everybody who studied warfare knows, attritional battles are a double edged sword. In this instance however, the differential in fire-power, organisation and air superiority is such that it is difficult to imagine the rebels withstanding the current onslaught. Interestingly also, the tactical gains on the battlefield often take more time to materialize than the power differential suggests.
When the first cracks in one of the adversaries' posture appear though, that is the moment when the strategists in charge need to retain the momentum they achieved and increase the operational pace, thus precipitating the decomposition of the adversary's organisation. In the current battle, such an outcome seems all the more likely that a new "front" was opened today deep inside rebel held territory, as the Syrian army - probably reinforced by Lebanese Hezbollah and/or Iranian Pasdarans - moved forward in the South-West of Aleppo (area 1 on the map) and towards the East (area 2).
The operational implications of this new fighting ground are substantial. From a rebels' perspective, they are now facing the prospect of a two front war, which will force them to allocate their resources and manpower even more carefully. This balancing act will further complicate their planning and open the way to a potential breakthrough of a Russian/Syrian/Iranian force of heavy armour and infantry, in any of the areas mentioned above, most likely in Latakia province.
For the Syrian government on the other side, the ability to regain the initiative in Aleppo, where its forces have been hard pressed for quite some time, is not just of symbolic value, insofar as it will commit rebel groups direly needed elsewhere. It is not a diversion either, as the second axis of attack (area 2 on the map) aims at opening the road to Kuweires airbase, an isolated SAA post that is cut off from Aleppo by units of the "Islamic State".
Currently, this offensive in area 2 is the only ground operation that the Russian led coalition has launched against ISIS. At the time this piece was drafted, SAA units were about 5 miles away from Kuweires airbase. Should this offensive manage to get through, it could hand the Russians a potentially fully operational airbase much further East than anything they currently have.
Patrick a question for you. Were those Syrian or Russian AT-AT Imperial Walkers in the video? I have a hard time believing the Russians could transport enough of them through the Bosporus without amateur observers noticing them.
Posted by: bth | 18 October 2015 at 03:16 PM
He has a website called Conflicts Forum at http://www.conflictsforum.org/
He posts his commentaries every two weeks, it seems. You can sign up for email alerts.
Posted by: FB Ali | 18 October 2015 at 07:47 PM
Fred,
I'd say in spite of vs because of
Posted by: Tyler | 18 October 2015 at 07:53 PM
Jack,
Lmbo whut? No, there is no triple bankshot theory to get Obama off the hook. He's another globalist technocrat ditherer, not a subversive monkey wrencher. All of his actions are basically gut responses b/c he doesn't like Putin.
Posted by: Tyler | 18 October 2015 at 07:56 PM
As you said, US foreign policy does not bode well for a "benign outcome". However, Vladimir Putin appears to have a cool head and a chess-player's vision.
China is also under a leadership that is not under pressure to play to a jingoistic, misguided lobby (as is the case in the US), and has shown a steady hand and long-term vision.
One hopes that the two of them together will save us all from annihilation.
Posted by: FB Ali | 18 October 2015 at 07:59 PM
Amazing what you can do when you try.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/air-strikes-on-islamic-state-convoy-in-syria-kill-40/
Posted by: J Villain | 18 October 2015 at 08:11 PM
Anna,
Globalist secular hedonism.
The Marxists lost the economic war but won the cultural one.
Posted by: Tyler | 19 October 2015 at 04:06 AM
Thanks FB Ali, after I posted I realized that I should have checked ConflictForum.
Strictly it does not matter, but I used some search strategies that usually help. Here is one:
Site Search conflictforum, Erdogan + "10.2015"
http://tinyurl.com/Conflict-Search-2
I am assuming he picked Lin up recently. As I recall her article was published in October. I used the way the time seemed to be rendered in Google site searches, admittedly since I did not have the patience to dig through all the articles that dealt with Erdogan.
Since this obviously is no direct quote, but something you prefer to quote: "re-Ottomanise northern Syria and Iraq". What would help me to find the context of his quote?
Posted by: LeaNder | 19 October 2015 at 12:02 PM
All
It seems that Russia is raising its military personnel strength in Syria to 3,000 and its sortie rate to 300/day. I expect that a Russian ground force will be committed to the campaign. It is amusing to read of US civilian officials and military leaders saying that they were surprised by
Russian intervention in Syria. How is it that SST was not surprised but rather predicted it? Also, the general officer nitwits in US Forces Europe say that they thought Russia was committed, indeed over-committed in the Donbas. What they missed was that a commitment of Russian materiel does not equal a commitment of Russian troops. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 19 October 2015 at 12:52 PM