Hello and welcome to the 20th installment of the SWD . Finally after a long overdue, an official Twitter account for the SWD is up and running @SyrianWarDaily. Feel free to send a message if you have an inquiry.

Military events are listed below by the governorates:

Aleppo:

Humanitarian aid convoy jointly organized by Russia and Syria entered villages near Manbij and distributed medicine and food to the local population. More convoys are expected to arrive in the area with some even possibly reaching Manbij city.

Even though SDF -Russia deal was announced a few days ago, clashes continue between TFSA and SDF with former capturing Jubb al-Amir from the latter, west of Manbij in the area that is supposedly going to be handed over to the government.

TFSA showed footage of them capturing 2 more SAA soldiers in eastern Aleppo.

SAA Tiger Forces continued their rapid advance against IS and have taken control of; Qasr Hadlah, al-Tawiat, al-Fathiat, Abu Jadha Saghir and Qitah Sharqi.

Map showing latest situation in eastern Aleppo countryside. Source: @PetoLucem

Idlib:

SyAAF lost a MiG-21 today while it was flying over Idlib governorate in the direction of Turkey, presumably doing a bombing run. Warplane crashed in Hatay province, Turkey. This is were confirmed news end on this topic and speculations being.

How warplane crashed is still disputed and there are 3 possible scenarios being spread around; first one claims that the plane was downed by Turkey after the navigation system malfunctioned and plane entered Turkish airspace. Second possible scenario states that the plane was shot down by rebels and Ahrar al-Sham claimed responsibility for it. Third possible scenario is that the plane had a technical problem and crashed.

Any of these scenarios could be true as it wouldn’t be the first time Turkey downed a plane that illegally entered its airspace nor would it be the first time rebels downed a SyAAF warplane nor would it be the first time SyAAF warplane had a technical problem and crashed. Each of these scenarios won’t affect things much if it was done in an accordance with the international law, that is in Turkey’s case. One thing is for sure, a SyAAF lost a MiG-21 today.

There are even disagreements about pilot’s fate, majority of the sources reported he was alive and that search is in progress. However, two unconfirmed claims are being spread, first one is that the pilot was captured by rebels while he parachuted from the falling plane and the second one is that the locals found hapless pilot and he is safe now.

Iraq:

A chain of suicide attacks has struck west Mosul over the past few days, just today 5 car bombs targeted Iraqi army in Al-Tayran district, they were all reportedly destroyed before reaching designated targets. Clashes in the city took place near governor building and prophet Sheet mosque, new significant advances by the Iraqi army didn’t happen since yesterday.

Latest Map showing situation in west Mosul. Source: @NinevehMC

On the 3rd of March 2017 CJTF-OIR has conducted 2 strikes in Syria. CJTF-OIR ‘s main focus in Syria at the moment is still Raqqa where they did 1 strike supporting SDF ‘s operation against IS destroying a weapons storage facility

Other area where strike occurred is Palmyra damaging a bridge. Full report on CJTF-OIR strikes conducted in both Syria & Iraq can be found here.

Intellectual credited property used may vary from an edition to edition.

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For those of you interested, you can follow me on my personal, biased twitter @joskobaric where I occasionally tweet some things.