September 05, 2017

Syria - The Liberation Of Deir Ezzor

The Syrian army just broke the Islamic State siege on the city of Deir Ezzor and its military garrison. The siege had been held up since mid 2014.

In a six month long campaign the SAA moved several hundred kilometers from the outskirts of Aleppo and Palmyra towards Deir Ezzor. Three axes, north, center and south drove the campaign through the semi desert. One axis has now reached the areas held by the besieged troops while the spear tips of the other two are only a few kilometers away.

Syrian TV showed the first joyful contact at the 137 brigades area, 15km from Deir Ezzor city center.



bigger

Only in January the city and its 100,000 inhabitants left was on the verge of falling into the hands of ISIS. A massive U.S. air attack on the most important Syrian military position of Deir Ezzor in September 2016 directly enabled the ISIS move. But surprisingly the garrison, with 4-5,000 soldiers, held out. Supplies were dropped by parachute through a Russian and Syrian air-bridge and the grand operation to liberate the city was planned and prepared.

It has now succeeded. The Syrian government forces were supported by Russian special forces, Iranian contingents, Hizbullah forces and various militia. The Russian air force flew massive interdiction raids in front of the advancing troops. The Russian navy fired cruise missiles against core ISIS hold outs in the area.

Mabruk!

It will take further weeks to eliminate ISIS completely from the parts of the city it holds and areas around it.



Map (August 2017) by Fabrice Balanche - bigger (with legend)

The upcoming question then is how this campaign will proceed. Will the SAA cross the Euphrates at Deir Ezzor to retake the valuable oilfields east of it? Or will it stay south of the river and leave those oil fields to the Kurdish U.S. proxies in the north?

Posted by b on September 5, 2017 at 11:25 UTC | Permalink

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