| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Syrian Army, Hezbollah And Iran Are Preparing For ‘Gigantic And Ferocious Battle’ In Border Area With Israel
On October 19th, Western Journalism reported that Hezbollah, together with Iranian forces and Bashar al-Assad’s army, had reversed a rebel offensive in the northern Kuneitra Province in Syria and that Hezbollah fighters were already along the border with Israel on the Golan Heights, where they seized the so-called UN Hill opposite the Druze town of Magdal Shams on the Israeli Golan Heights.
They “are now expected to advance in the direction of the town of Kuneitra opposite the observation point on the Israeli Golan Heights,” we wrote at the time.
Yesterday, Lebanese media reported that Hezbollah and government troops were redeploying ‘en-masse’ from their positions in the mountainous area in Zabadani along the border with Lebanon. The Assad axis had been fighting rebels during an offensive that lasted from July to the end of September until a local ceasefire was brokered between the rebels and the government coalition.
A source told the outlet All4Syria that the Hezbolah and government forces were heading to the front in eastern Ghouta and Darayah at the southern outskirts of Damascus.
“23 Microvans, 14 large Kia vehicles, 16 large Toyotas, two small closed top cars, three Inter trucks, 3 ZiL vehicles full of men, 15 taxis carrying Hezbollah and NDF members and four large transport vehicles (each) big enough for over 200 passengers,” All4Syria wrote.
Today, the Lebanese news site NOW Lebanon reported that there is another reason Hezbollah and Assad’s forces redeployed. According to NOW, Assad’s army, together with Hezbollah and units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps assisted by Russian warplanes, “are preparing for a gigantic and ferocious battle over the coming days.”
A source in the Free Syrian Army told All4Syria that a major offensive will be launched in the coming days to regain a “triangle of territory stretching from the southern outskirts of Damascus down to Quneitra in the southwest and Daraa in the southeast.” The source added that large detachments of its forces are being deployed “to more than one front in order to target the point of convergence between the three regions that form the triangle of death (Daraa, Quneitra and western rural Damascus).”
Russian warplanes have repeatedly bombed Jabhat al-Nusra positions in the Quneitra Province over the last two weeks in preparation for the imminent ground offensive, according to reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and other Syrian and Lebanese media.
For example, on October 29th, Russian jets launched a series of “strikes on the villages of Tel al-Hara, Tal al-Antar, Kafar Nasij and Tal Aqraba, all of which are located approximately 15 kilometers east of the Golan demarcation line,” SOHR reported.
If the anticipated offensive will materialize, it will constitute a game-changer for Israel. The government in Jerusalem is vehemently opposed to the presence of Hezbollah and the IRGC on the Golan Heights but has few options left to prevent Hezbollah and the IRGC from setting up camp in the vicinity of the Israeli border since the Russian intervention in Syria.
Meanwhile, in northern Syria, a new U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition by the name Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has launched an offensive to drive Islamic State out of the Hasakah Governate. SDF troops have seized 255 square kilometers in the Al-Hawl region in northern Hasakah. The SDF alliance includes the Kurdish YPG militia, the Syrian-Arab coalition, moderate Sunni rebels and an Assyrian Christian rebel group.
The original goal of the new coalition was to attack and conquer Raqqa, the capital of Islamic State; but the risk that this would fail was apparently too big, so the alliance opted for an attack on Hasakah that was already partly in the hands of the YPG.
The decision to drop Raqqa as a target was apparently coordinated with the U.S.
The Obama administration desperately needs a success story in Syria and can now show the first results of its new strategy that aims to arm and train the SDF to the point that the alliance will be able to defeat ISIS.
There are new problems, however; the Arab allies of the YPG aren’t organized in a properly fashion. They have no central command, no bases, and not even the logistic capability to move air-dropped weapon and ammunition supplies. The activities of the coalition are furthermore hindered by Turkey, which doesn’t want to see more YPG victories and advances. The Turkish army has already attacked SDF forces on several occasions.
Another problem is that the alliance doesn’t share the same values. The Kurds gave the coalition the name Syrian Democratic Forces, but the Arab Sunni members are more interested in ousting Assad and not so much in democracy. This is why analysts think that the coalition won’t last for long and won’t be able to defeat Islamic State, which is very well organized.
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/syrian-army-hezbollah-and-iran-are-preparing-for-gigantic-and-ferocious-battle-in-border-area-with-israel/
