Major Offensive in Syria — Also, Comments About Secrecy in Media
Sunday, September 25, 2016 13:51
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[Fort Russ News has confirmed the following from various trusted sources on the ground, monitoring the events closely. These were compared to a number of breaking stories coming from AMN, SANA, Fars, and the SAA's official social-networking. We have also provided background information covering the several days before, bringing readers up-to-date from the end of the US-Russia ceasefire through the ongoing maneuvers leading up to the major pre-dawn offensive that is still underway. We have pulled together about nine different pieces of reportage and present them in a comprehensive manner, in chronological order. We have also given some analysis.]
COMPLETE REPORT
September 24th – Aleppo, Syria – Pre-dawn around 4 am, the Syrian Arab Army and allied forces launched the largest phase of an all out offensive in Aleppo, which was declared on September 22nd. At the time of publication, this is an ongoing offensive in the form of a three pronged attack. The map below shows us the starting points of the three pronged attack – in boxes.
| Figure 1 |
Today’s major attack began from three directions indicated above. It is the culmination of the last 48 hours of fighting in the aftermath of the failed ceasefire. It is reported that the Syrian Arab Army had observed the movement of jihadist reserves in the encirclement, and these positions were the result of tactical victories in the last two days. We will give some background in the following section on how the pieces came to be positioned in this way.
This phase of the offensive was delayed by up to 20 hours for reasons explained in the below section of this report ‘The Last 48 Hours’.
This is the best advantage for the SAA to have for a battle of this type, for they can attack from many direction and the enemy is handicapped in this regard.
Between 45k to 70k Syrian soldiers and their allies are reportedly involved around Aleppo and 20k to 25k terrorists are inside the city. We are unable at this time to narrow the numbers down more precisely.
These moves are all just the beginning of a series of coordinated attacks which, we are cautious to say, may determine the outcome of this conflict. Significant is that Lavrov has taken the future possibility of unilateral ceasefires off the table. These were unilateral as it was revealed in public statements and some leaked elements of the ceasefire agreement, because Al-Nusra, not a party to the ceasefire, was included in the areas under protection of the ceasefire based on the US’s claim that they were trying to ‘separate’ the moderates from Al-Nusra. Lay critics and citizen-activists not familiar with what was important for Russia and Syria for the ceasefires, had pointed at that the cessation of hostilities came at the same time in reports published, including our own, that victory was in sight.
It is clear now that the Russians used the ceasefire talks and the documents produced as a result, to prove to the international community, and for posterity, that the US could not distinguish between, or separate out, ‘moderate rebels’ from the Al-Nusra terrorist group.
At the present time there seems to be little horizontal movement on the diplomatic front for the US, which leads us to say with some degree of certitude that another diplomatic maneuver is not going to stop this all out fight.
What we may find is the US directly assisting the terrorist units, which it admits are inseparable or indistinguishable from the apparently fictional ‘moderate rebels’, dropping supplies by air, which will raise the question of the extent to which Syria and Russia will respond.
Focusing now back on the logistics of this offensive, we will first examine the southern offensive.
At about 8am this morning, the pre-dawn attack resulted in some notable gains. The SAA and allied forces launched an assault in strategically important sectors in southern Aleppo. This was confirmed by the following announcement from AMN
“The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), backed by Hezbollah and Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary), launched a new assault at the 1070 Al-Hamdaniyah Housing Project in southern Aleppo on Saturday, striking the southern sector of this district that is controlled by Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest).
Led by the Republican Guard and 4th Mechanized Division, the Syrian Arab Army and their allies stormed the southern sector of the 1070 Housing Project and the nearby Hikmah Hill, resulting in a fierce battle that is still ongoing.
According to a military source in Aleppo city, the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies are attempting to break-through Jaysh Al-Fateh’s final line of defense at the 1070 Housing Project, while a large Hezbollah unit attacks the Qarassi axis.”
With this had, in the coming days a spearhead attack will make use of a vanguard pushing from a southerly direction. See this map below:
| Figure 2 – proposed maneuver for 9-26 |
This map above, Figure 2, corresponds to the lower-most box on the south of the map in Figure 1, at the top
These moves will be possible based upon positions already held and reinforced from around September 10th or 11th, and this mornings gains. Two groups, one to the south-east and the other to the south-west of the Sheikh Saeed district, will push towards the center, joining in that district, routing terrorist groups before they can manage to reform their line in the aftermath of the aerial bombardment previously. This will likely be a combined assault by the SAA, Liwaa Al-Quds, with Hezbollah, and will involve the celebrated Tiger Forces.
Complete Fort Russ News Article: http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/09/breaking-all-out-fight-for-aleppo.html
