Week Six of the Russian Intervention in Syria: a first major success for
the Syrian armed forces
November 15, 2015
This column was originally written for the
Unz
Review:http://www.unz.com/tsaker/week-six-of-the-russian-intervention-in-syria-a-first-major-success-for-the-syrian-armed-forces/
Thesaker.is
Finally. After weeks of gruelling combat the
Syrian armed forces have liberated the Kuweyres air base in northern Syria.
This is a huge victory for the Syrians because during the 2,5 year long siege
of the airbase it had become an important symbol of the Syrian determination to
resist the Takfiris in general and, especially, Daesh which had deployed its
best fighters to maintain the siege of the base and prevents its liberation. In
fact, the Takfiris did resist with everything they had up to the last moment.
For those of you interested in video and photos of the combats and liberation of
Kuweyres I would recommend the site of Colonel Cassad and specifically these
posts: (in Russian)
Many of
these images and videos are for a “mature audience” only, but they do convey
the sense of victory for the Syrian side and I highly recommend watching them.
Up to this moment all the successes of the Syrian armed forces were limited in
importance whereas the liberation of Kuweyres not only represents a huge moral
victory for the Syrians, but it also has an “operational significance” meaning
that it actually changes the shape and dynamic of the front (click here for a high
resolution map of the area). Put simply: the Syrian have now seized the
initiative from Daesh and they are now on the offensive. As for Daesh, they now
have to allocate their forces to prevent the Syrians from further exploiting
their success in Kuweyres. Most observers, including myself,
were hoping for, or even expecting, such a development, but now it has finally
happened. This is very, very good news.
There
was, by the way, an interesting if little noticed side story to this event:
according to the Russian military, the “moderate opposition” gave key
intelligence to the Russian to target the “terrorists” around the airbase. Here
is what RT reported about that:
Syrian
government forces received intelligence on terrorist positions around the
besieged Kweires airbase from opposition sources, which helped them lift the
two-year blockade, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed. “This
airfield had been surrounded by ISIS [the former name of the Islamic State
terrorist group] for two years,” Major General Igor Konashenkov,
spokesman for the Russian defense ministry, said in a daily briefing. “Intelligence
on the locations of the terrorist fire positions and support points around
Kweires was provided by the Syrian opposition and cleared by the communication
center in Baghdad.” Lifting the siege on the airbase in Aleppo
provinces has been one of the biggest victories for Damascus since Russia
started providing air support for Syrian government forces. The opposition also
provided data to help target a big weapons depot of the Nusra Front, the Syrian
branch of Al Qaeda, near the village Mheen in the Homs province, Konashenkov
revealed.
For one
thing, as far as I know, the so-called “moderate opposition” is mostly a myth,
and to the degree that it does exist, it is in Turkey and in London.
Furthermore, I don’t remember the so-called FSA playing any major role around
Kuweyres. So what is going on here?
Well,
maybe the Russians just made up this putative intelligence sharing in order to
show that they are working hand-in-glove with the “moderate opposition” or,
which is far more likely, some folks associated with Daesh felt that the tide
was turning and decided to re-brand themselves as “moderates” and gave the
Russians some intel in exchange for money and life. This kind of sudden “coat
turning” is typical of the Takfiris and the Russians saw plenty of that in
Afghanistan. If my guess is correct, then this further goes to show that Daesh
is beginning to seriously hurt under the combined effects of the Russian and
Syrian offensives. Again, this is very good news indeed.
Hassan
Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, also immediately declared that the liberation of the Kuweyres
airbase “resilience,
strength, determination, and vigor of the soldiers and officers of the Syrian
Arab Army”. He is right.
There is
no overstating the heroism of the Syrians who fought and refused to surrender
even though they had no meds and minimum food and supplies But then, since they
would not surrender, their only options were to fight to the end or die. And
they fought, alone, for over two years. This is why the first Russian reporter
who got into Kuweyres wrote “У сирийцев теперь есть свой Сталинград” (the
Syrians now have their own Stalingrad).
Having
taken Kuweyres, the Syrian army continued its offensive and,according to the latest reports, the Syrians have no also
liberated the towns of al-Hader and al-Heis. Following this latest Syrian
victory, a Takfiri commander blamed it on the
Russian Air Force and declared“The heavy aerial bombardment of Al Hader
and the surrounding area gave us no choice but to retreat, but these are
to-and-fro battles, where we win ground one day and the next day we lose it“.
Maybe.
Still, it
is way too early to celebrate. Following weeks of intense fighting and only
tactical victories, the Syrians have now achieved their first operational
breakthrough, but they will need several more before they can contemplate a
strategic offensive against Daesh. This is something which the USA and, even
more so, Turkey and Qatar are going to try to prevent with everything they got.
Here again, it is important to repeat, that the very small Russian force in
Syria does not have the means to, for example, prevent Turkey from moving its
forces into Syria.
At this
point in time, I would judge Turkey and Qatar as even more dangerous than the
USA. Why? Because they both put way too much prestige and, especially, money
into ousting Assad and building apipeline across Syria to link their two countries and they
know that as long as Assad or any other secular regime remains in power in
Damascus they can forget about it. In fact, if the
Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah alliance is successful in flushing out
Daesh from Syria, were will all the Takfiri freaks go? The risk here is not
only for Turkey, but even for the Saudis!
In
contrast, Obama will soon be gone anyway and its not like the USA has a real
national strategic interest in Syria (unless you assume that pleasing AIPAC is
such a vital goal). Yes, it would be humiliating for the “indispensable nation”
to miserably fail only to have a “local power” like Russia brilliantly succeed,
but this humiliation can always be blamed on the outgoing Administration and
used to get more votes. As for the US “deep state”, it knows that it can work
with Assad only because it used to work with him very nicely before it decided
to dump him (Assad even tortured “rendered” suspects on behalf of the CIA!). So
keeping Assad in power might be humiliating but not much more than all the
other humiliation the AngloZionst Empire already had to suffer at the hands of
Putin.
Speaking
of Putin, he made an important statement this week: while initially Russian
officials had declared that the Russian military operations would last
approximately 3 months, Putin has now
declared that “the
duration of stay of our military will be determined solely depending on the
time this objective is achieved”. This could indicate a far longer
Russian involvement.
I might
be mistaken, in fact, I hope that I am, but I don’t see how Daesh could be
defeated without an increase of the size of the Russian military force in Syria
and, especially, an increase in the number of Iranians supporting the Syrians
on the ground. Nobody will be happier than me if I am proven wrong, believe me.
Final
event this week: it appears that the Russians are further digging in and that they have now deployed S-400 missile system on their
base in Khmeimim. Depending on how you look at it, this either
doubles the air defense capabilities of the Russian naval task force off the
Syrian coast, or frees the guided missile cruiser Moskva for other tasks.
Curiously, Russian officials
have denied that S-400s are deployed in Syria. Either way, this is
good news as the the deeper the Russian dig in into their positions, the harder
it will be to threaten them. All in all, a very good week for the resistance to
Empire and there is real possibility that the next couple of weeks will see
even bigger progress.
The Saker
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