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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.
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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?
What impresses me is the brilliance of the entire military campaign strategy in Syria, starting perhaps with the Aleppo victory. If you look at the progress since then, the sequence of the arenas slated for take-over, the tactics of securing the flanks and the high grounds (certainly ever since Palmyra fell the second time), the use of battle hardened and special forces (cf. the Tiger) to form a bridge head, complemented by regular troops, militia and allies (Hezbollah, IRPG, Iraqis, Arab tribes) to secure and hold them, and the obvious coordination between different flanks to form “pockets”, which are then left to fester until the will and ability to fight are gone (cf. Maskaneh, central Homs/Hama), it becomes then obvious that already back in 2016 a grand plan for taking Syria back was developed, taking into account available manpower and required materiel. The plan was then executed in an almost clockwork precision – something that should become clear if one looks at the time-lagged maps that show the different areas as they came under SAA’s control.
I see numerous traces of the handiwork of Russian military planners everywhere I look, and I don’t mean to detract in any way from the accomplishments of the Syrian army and government in saying this. There are instances where similarities can be drawn between the campaigns in Donbass and Syria despite radically different terrains and people. In particular, I do see evidence for discipline imposed as an absolute must – recall the Desert hawks who not long ago started to act a bit too independently and were then summarily disbanded and redistributed. Such imposition of discipline happened in the Donbass too after a while. Of course, Syria was a huge challenge to start with, given the diversity of the people, the poor condition of the military when the Russians arrived in 2015, the many losses and, of course, the enemies they faced, which were as ruthless as they come, and included a malevolent superpower pulling the strings.
I believe that somewhere in advanced military institutions a careful strategy was drawn that left all kinds of room for flexibility so that response to new events can be made and opportunities could be exploited. The combination of diplomacy, negotiations for de-escalation zones, cease-fires, utilization of unique assets (missiles here and there), deployment of sudden flanking moves to block an enemy’s advance (al-Tanf), and, of course, the meticulous gathering of enough manpower and equipment before start of a new and difficult campaign, enough to overwhelm designated enemies (ISIS, al-Nusra), is nothing short of brilliant. That even as behind the scenes moves were being made to contain Israel, the US and Turkey, some of which we know about and some we don’t.
By comparison, American military planners seem ineffective everywhere America went to fight, be it in Afganistan or Iraq or Syria (through proxy). I don’t think it’s because of lack of capability, because the US military does no doubt have good strategists and tacticians among its ranks. Rather it’s because the bizarre American political games get in the way, with defense department, state department, pentagon and the military often at odds, each double and triple-guessing the other. Not to mention a rogue CIA that seems to act according to its own set of rules, serving some Deep State somewhere, accountable seemingly to no one. It somehow always seemed like America is pretending to fight in a 10 dimensional world, using one-dimensional game pieces that produce enormous damage to local infrastructures, civilians and their own morale, yet gaining little respect in the end and hardly any good will from the locals.
I can easily imagine, for example, some high up West Pointers being quite as impressed as I am with the planning and execution of the Syrian campaign, and no doubt rather bitter that America’s forces always seem to come out losing more than they gain, even as they miss entirely on the high moral ground. On a good day like this, I almost feel sorry for them (but not too much, of course).
Posted by: Merlin2 | Sep 6 2017 20:36 utc | 82
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