Source
r/syriancivilwar•
danieloakwood

SAA's two pronged attack on Jabal Zawiya and el Ghab plain; loss of Saraqib

Why is the SAA seizing territory in the south and getting it's butt kicked in the northeast, you are probably wondering?

A lot of people probably aren't clear on why the 25th Special Mission Division AKA the Tigers were redeployed away from the Saraqib/Idlib front to the Al-Ghab plains, a strategic choice which resulted in the loss of Saraqib and a dangerous rebel breakout from the point of view of the regime. Here's a quick post with some pictures to illustrate what appears to be going on.

The SAA's elite (or at least competent) troops recently took a lot of territory along the M5 corridor from Aleppo. For a time a few weeks ago it seemed they were threatening Idlib City itself, and indeed there were probing attacks on the suburb of Sarmin.

But then, once the M5 highway was "secured", at last tying Syria's two major cities together for the first time since the war began, the 25th was apparently loaded on trucks and sent all the way down to the al-Ghab plain (probably a hundred road miles south and west); simultaneously an attack was launched on Jabal Zawiya, a mountainous area south of Idlib city (apparently with the 5th Battalion of the 5th division, the SAA's other competent assault unit, in charge).

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Lots of territory was taken by the 5th of the 5th, but why were the Tigers redeployed down there as well? The units that were left to defend the M5 and Saraqib were clearly incompetent and they broke at the first determined rebel assault.

The answer I think is a 2,000 foot cliff, and Jisr al-Shughour, the other major rebel city. Jabal Zawiyah is separated from the al-Ghab plain (a finger of flat farmland along the Orontes river that pokes all the way up past Jisr, where it splits in two and continues basically to the Turkish border). Geographically, the Jabal Zawiyah offensive is split in two by the giant cliff of the Jabal Zawiyah that looms out of the al-Ghab plain. While the fifth of the fifth sweeps up through the Jabal, the Tigers (presumably with armor) are moving up the Ghab plain.

Imgur

The strategic objective is to split Jisr off from Idlib, and envelop one or the other, probably Jisr.

This is all very appropriate because it was the Tigers who had to fight their way out of Jisr along the al-Ghab plain five years ago when the war was moving in a decidedly different direction. I thin the Tigers have been tasked with pocketing and seizing Jisr.

Anyway, just posting this to start maybe a higher level discussion of what everyone else thinks is going on at this pivotal but puzzling moment.

Posted Feb 27, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

6615
gonzolegendEuropean Union•

Great post.

Sync's with what Within Syria said yesterday to a degree:

The SAA launched its attack from southern Idlib beleving that HTS\NFL will fight for these areas. This didn't happen, HTS\NFL made a choice to sacrifice entier soutehrn Idlib to take over Saraqib, this took the army by surpise and they will most likely success in taking it.

I've also read somewhere that HTS didn't send men South to fight because of fears they would get bombed while traveling down, so decided to fight close to their location in Idlib city.

My personal view is that it will probably work out well for the SAA. They have gained another large area in Southern Idlib, and a mountainous area that has proved difficult to take in the past. In exchange for one town Saraqib that will probably be taken back easily in the near future.

Also sure Russia is just waiting for Saraqib to fall before launching dozens of airstrikes on the "victors". Probably end up being a meat grinder for the rebels to hold the town.

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SomePolackUSA•

Well the reports of the dozens of dead Turkish soldiers is proving your theory right, I think.

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sugarmademefat•

Interesting post, thanks for sharing!

I believe you are on to something. Images of captured POW near Saraqib shows the poor condition of those soldiers, low quality af, so you are deff right about that.

As I wrote in an other posts comment section; Luring out the rebels from hiding and making them mass forces towards saraqib and m5 there while taking the southern idlib (that has way more difficult terrain than in saraqib area) would make sense. Syrian officials said like within 24-48h from saraqib to be captured that the M5 highway was repaired and restored, which is very unlikely, so might be an other thing that points towards this theory. Lets see.

Reports are that "Tiger forces" are moving to Saraqib now. I can not tell if this is true or not.

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Hezbollapalooza•

Reports now of massive Turkish casualties from the bombardment of Saraqib, plus denying airspace for even medevac. Russia is not very happy. I'm just talking out of my ass here but maybe Putin spoke with Erdogan prior to Zawiya operation and had some kind of "understanding" that the M5 wouldn't be threatened and Russia is pissed at Turkey moving in?

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notehp•

As an armchair general the only thing I can think of why the current situation is not a complete failure is that the flank in Saraqib was left open to lure the rebels in so the capture of much harsher terrain further south becomes easier as recapturing Saraqib may be more manageable than facing serious resistance in mountainous terrain. But there are more than enough other explanations: incompetence/bad luck/rebels hitting the weak point/lack of man power/Turkish assistance. And M5 getting cut is probably not exactly an acceptable loss even if it may get recaptured in a couple of days.

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Oleg_Ribarcuk•

Here is my issues with what happened.

  1. Political Concerns: Turkey is showing more and more signs that they may do the crazy thing and go on an offensive. Showing any kind of weakness at this moment is a very big mistake. First it gives the Russians less leverage during the bargaining and most importantly it may lead to the Turks taking a gamble that the SAA will collapse. A gamble that it would not be in any interest of Syria for Turkey to make. Even if Turkey is utterly defeated, the entire North of Syria will be a wasteland and they will be facing an belligerent neighbour for decades. Maintaining at least a fasade of strength is of paramount importance to the Syrian government at the moment.
  2. Continuous bleeding of your best: Some time ago I read an article that was a comparison of the Syrian army composition from before the war and the present. The most notable thing for me was that certain units like the special operations units attached to each division early in the conflict enjoyed great success. So where are they now? well almost all of them are gone because they were bleed dry and today they have neither the time nor resource to restart training. And this is not just evident for the Special Forces groups but the Republican Guard and certain army divisions to an extent as well. The conflict slowly bleed them dry from competence because they were over used.
    Here comes Saraqib(and the same thing has happened hundreds of times before), the competent units went on the offensive and secured the city and the surrounding area. Then control was transfered to other units. The area was a known active combat area and they had a few days to dig in and set up defences. What happens the first time they were attacked? they ran. They always run because they know there will be no punishment and the "good units" can take it back later on.
  3. No taking of responsibility nor learning of lessons: Here is the most interesting part. Ok so everyone posted yesterday that the high command made mistakes thinking that HTS will defend the South. And they evidently made a huge blunder. Who was sacked from high command? The officers on the ground, were they punished for negligence for not being able to set up a defensive line nor present resistance in any way. The officers above them ,were they punished for not being able to organise reinforcements for 24 hours, while the frontline being like 30 km away from a major population center and arsenal?
    They can literally get SU ( or from any other country) infantry manuals which describe in detail how to set up a defensive line and organize a defense. For an officer to spend 10 years in a war not learning a thing is beyond insane. The nonchalance with which they are fighting is astounding.

And if we go into the armchair general stuff then the list would grow exponentially.

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vzenov•

This is textbook operational art.

Consolidate forces where you can create the most momentum because the ability to gain momentum determines who can maintain initiative.

Allow the enemy to waste momentum on a piece of territory that you can give up in a controlled manner. Absorb as much enemy forces as you can and deal as many casualties with focus on the enemy's ability to maintain momentum i.e. loss of vehicles is more important than loss of manpower, loss of logistics more important than combat vehicles.

Then after you consolidate forces you prepare a counter attack.

What SAA is doing right now is removing a salient south of M4 which will shorten the frontline and allow for attack against the M4. Once M4 is secure a two-pronged attack from the south and from the north will create a pocket for the rebel forces threatening to cut them off from Idlib which is their support area.

Jisr is of secondary importance but it is very likely that SAA will allow rebels to go even further to secure at least control of territory alongside M4.

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danieloakwoodOPUnited States of America•

Yeah if you look at my second illustration it’s very clear that the objective is cutting the M4, right where the al-Ghab plain bifurcates and the eastern finger becomes the al-Rouj valley. It’s interesting because a couple of weeks ago this is what I speculated they were going to try to do, except I assumed they would try to move along the M-4 from the east, through Arriha and not from the west and south.

Now of course the question is whether the size of the rebel breakout means the SAA command will panic and redeploy again up toward Idlib. I think no one expected the garrison troops at Saraqib to break so quickly.

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vzenov•

Again, this is better operational art.

Movement from east to west would open SAA to counter-attack from both sides. Movement from west to east gives very little room for Turkey to put their reinforcements into Syria and smaller distance to Latakia makes air and EW support much easier.

West to east it is SAA making a pincer movement, just one side of the pincer is already there on the Aleppo side.

East to west it is SAA walking into a pincer.

I think the Russians who are undoubtedly calling the shots on this operation won't let them spoil a good plan. Saraqib can fall, and they can give up even more of M5 and surrounding area. With M4 captured the position for counter-attack is much better.

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red_byrd•

Thank you for taking the time to write and illustrate this, it is a very thoughtful and informative analysis.

I am nothing but an interested observer, but my personal take is that the worst thing for the SAA, long term, is a situation where rebels are pushed up against the Turkish border either in small pockets or as an insurgency. This would leave them capable of periodically threatening Idlib, Jisr, or Aleppo (at a push) indefinitely with de facto Turkish support. This is essentially creating a Donbass or South Ossetia situation within Syria, and it's doubtful political negotiations of any length would ever result in a peaceful resolution.

Given the still significant but depleted state of the rebels in Idlib, it makes sense for the SAA to allow them to mass their forces and push deeper into Syria, thus taking them further away from the Turkish border. This development gives the SAA an opportunity to push north and west and secure the Turkish border area with relatively less resistance than previously, by extension giving them an opportunity to cut the direct supply routes from Turkey to HTS/SNA. Between the SAA and Russia, they have shown that they are able to take and retake areas along the M5 essentially at will, so why not temporarily let the rebels have Saraqib and even Ma'arrat if the upside is cutting the link between them and Turkey? I would have to imagine that without that direct connection, the rebels would quickly expend their resources defending the resulting pocket. Losing the M5 would be/is a blow, but it's not as if it's the only link in existence between Damascus and Aleppo and they've been making do without it for 10 years...

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FeydSeswatha982•

But arent SAA forces vulnerable to TAF flank attacks from anywhere along Satay province?

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danieloakwoodOPUnited States of America•

I’m fairly convinced that both the SAA and the Turks will maintain the fiction that they aren’t at war with each other. The Turks are going to negotiate their way to SAA control of all prewar territory (including and especially Kurdish territory), in exchange for some military bases in Rojava, Afrin and Idlib.

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FeydSeswatha982•

This fiction is becoming increasingly hard to conceal, considering all of the recent escalations. Time will tell...

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jfnotkennedyUSA•

big doubt that they will share military bases alongside Russian, Syrian and American ones in Rojava. Both won't let that happen. That is just too much.

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donderpatrullen•

My thoughts are that they lack troops with offensive capabilities and will try to remove them from the front once it becomes static and let more dissposable units do their best. The tigers also suffered a great deal of casualities so maybe a lot of them has been sent to rest and regroup?

The regime will need competent units in the long run too and cant let those suffer to high casualities at once

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