What looked like a chaotic withdrawal of a disorganized army—Syrian army units had withdrawn all the way south to Hama by early evening, local time—within hours turned into a rout of the terrorist army north of Hama, when the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) finally went on the offensive. By the time the SAA stopped for the night, it had recaptured several towns on the highway back to Aleppo, from what appeared to be an overextended Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS). HTS had made a lightning advance down the M5 highway, taking town after town as the SAA pulled back, but, apparently, without sufficient forces to hold anything. A few HTS militants even drove into the northern outskirts of Hama, from where they posted a video, in which they claimed to have taken the city, but apparently didn’t stay longer than a few minutes.
“Our units operating in the northern part of Hama [province] last night strengthened the defense line with firepower and equipment, confronted the terrorist organizations and prevented them from breaking through,” said the statement posted on the Syrian Defense Ministry’s Facebook, reported TASS. “Our forces also managed to take control of a number of areas, the most important of which are Qalaat al-Madiq and Maardis, eliminating dozens of terrorists and causing the rest to flee,” the General Command said.
“Fighting is happening, that’s a good sign. In the past 4 days, most areas were taken without resistance. When the SAA fights, HTS will struggle, especially because their forces are spread so thin over such a large area,” reported the Middle East Spectator. “They were probably betting on an imminent collapse of the Syrian government (quite delusional) and decided to just push through to Hama & beyond. Initially this worked, most SAA units were just withdrawing and falling back, one city after another. But that domino effect stopped when they reached Hama city, and now they might be in trouble.”
Syrian and Russian warplanes are backing the SAA offensive, with strikes on HTS columns in Aleppo and Hama provinces, reportedly inflicting hundreds of casualties on the militants. One strike on an HTS command headquarters in Idlib province, later reported to be by the Russians, was believed to have killed HTS leader Mohamed al Jolani, but his death appears to still be unconfirmed. “The Syrian Arab Army is thwarting attacks of terrorists with assistance from the Russian Aerospace Force. Missile and bomb strikes were delivered over the past day against concentration areas of militants, control posts, depots and artillery positions, At least 300 militants were killed,” Captain Oleg Ignasyuk, the deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, said at a briefing yesterday, reported TASS.
The HTS offensive has been accompanied by massive amounts of psywar. Elements of it include not only the video from Hama, but also rumors of a coup in Damascus, a fake image of a dead al Jolani, and claims of escalating violence in Daraa in southern Syria. The coup rumor came after video of gunshots in Damascus began circulating online, which was later reported to be SAA elements moving against “rebel cells” in the city.
