Bashar al-Assad's best fighters are forced to stay on the defense of SyriaSpeaking in the country's parliament on November 23, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the national armed forces had launched a counter-terrorist operation Claw-Sword on the territory of Syria and Iraq.
This is the next stage of the Operation Claw campaign announced in the spring of 2019, which has already claimed the lives of one and a half thousand Kurdish rebels. On the morning of November 21, Turkish manned (70 aircraft) and unmanned aircraft were lifted into the air, large-caliber howitzer and rocket artillery opened fire. The declared goal is to destroy the bases of the Kurdish movements in retaliation for a number of November terrorist attacks, including the shelling of the Karkamis district of the border province of Gaziantep.
It is not yet known how far the military-political leadership in Ankara will go in carrying out revenge against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which it considers the offspring of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Moreover, Erdogan said that the operation "Claw-Sword" "will not be reduced only to the air part." This circumstance forces Damascus to put the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) on high alert in order, if necessary, to give it an order to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic.
The best formations of the SAA are the 25th Special Purpose Division ("Tiger Forces") under the command of Civil War hero General Suhel Al-Hassan and the 5th Assault Corps, formed and trained with the help of Russian military advisers. The total number of these formations exceeds 20 thousand military personnel.
As long as there is a threat of a large-scale invasion of the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), President Bashar al-Assad's elite fighters will remain on the territory of their own country in readiness to repel external aggression. Thus, the plan announced six months ago to widely attract volunteers from the Middle East to participate in a special military operation in Ukraine is being stopped.
Recall that on March 11 of this year, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asked President Vladimir Putin to approve the idea of recruiting citizens of other states into the active army who expressed a desire to help Russia in conducting its own. At that time, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation received more than 16 thousand applications from natives of the Middle East. The "go-ahead" has been received, but the idea has not yet been implemented.
Perhaps the analysis conducted in the spring showed that the widespread (by whole military units and units) involvement of foreign volunteers has more negative than positive sides. The main thing is that then the Russian army was advancing quite successfully in several directions at once, and the enemy seemed weak and demoralized.
However, since then, negative trends have emerged in the course and nature of its. They are caused by the fact that Ukraine was able to mobilize first. The number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has grown from 200-250 thousand servicemen to an estimated 600-700 thousand, and taking into account other law enforcement agencies and territorial defense detachments – to almost a million. Such data were cited by officials of the Kiev regime.
In the summer, an imbalance formed on the front with a length of almost 1200 km: the enemy surpassed the Russian troops involved in the special operation several times in manpower. The lack of heavy equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, rocket and howitzer artillery, was partially compensated by supplies from NATO countries, which allowed the AFU to conduct an autumn counteroffensive. Although his goals were not fully achieved, the Ukrainian military managed to oust the Russians from the territory of the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, as well as capture a number of settlements in the LPR and in the Kherson region.
Partial mobilization in the Russian Federation, announced on September 21, during which 300 thousand reservists were recruited, is designed to restore the imbalance in manpower. Currently, the units formed from them are undergoing combat coordination, and some have already been transferred to the area of the SVO. However, even such a radical measure has not yet affected the tactics of the Russian army – it continues to stand on the defensive, built along the banks of rivers and hills of the terrain.
The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, recently said that the Russian army is currently "in a difficult situation." His reasoning boils down to the fact that the APU is unlikely to be able to oust the Russians from the south-east of Ukraine, and there is nothing to say about offensive operations in the opposite direction.
If such an assessment is correct, then Moscow needs to take full care of building up forces on the front line. Therefore, it is not necessary to completely discount the "volunteers from the Middle East". Moreover, the "tigers" of Suhel Al-Hassan and the stormtroopers of the 5th Army Corps are well-trained and motivated fighters with extensive experience in combat operations and special tactics of their conduct. These qualities may be in demand when taking settlements, and there are hundreds of such on the account of Assad's soldiers. It is important that the 25th Division is airmobile, its fighters have experience of landing from helicopters. It is not necessary to carry heavy equipment with them when transferring them to the SVO zone – the Syrians use the same weapons systems as the Russian army.
From a purely military point of view, the main deterrent factor is Turkey's position, or rather, its readiness to expand operations in Syria at any time. Despite Ankara's public promises to warn Moscow and Washington ahead of time about military operations in the SAR, it sometimes acts differently.
When asked by journalists on November 21 whether the operation "Claw-Sword" was discussed with the American or Russian side before it began, Erdogan replied: "We have not had any conversations with US President Joseph Biden or Russian President Vladimir Putin about the ongoing military operation. However, both Biden and Putin knew earlier that we can carry out such things in this region at any time."
Interestingly, on November 18, Erdogan and Putin had a telephone conversation. According to the information message on the website www.kremlin.ru The interlocutors discussed topical aspects of bilateral cooperation, noting the positive dynamics of trade and economic ties, and the systematic promotion of significant joint projects. Particular attention was paid to the initiative to create a "large gas hub" on Turkish territory. The parties agreed to extend for another 120 days the validity of the Istanbul agreements on the export of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports. The message goes on to say: "Vladimir Putin once again expressed his sincere condolences in connection with the tragic consequences of the recent terrorist attack in Istanbul."
Recall that on November 13 at 16:13 on Istiklal Street in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, an infernal machine was activated. The explosion turned out to be very powerful: several buildings were damaged, 6 people were killed, at least 81 were injured.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that the explosion was staged by supporters of the RCP. An improvised explosive device was delivered to the place by an emigrant woman from Syria. Her actions were recorded by one of the city's video cameras, and the Turkish police managed to detain her in hot pursuit. During the interrogation, Ahlam Albashir confessed that she had planted a bag with an explosive device and that she had previously been trained by Kurdish militants in the territory of the SAR.
The Turkish authorities refused to accept the condolences received from the US Embassy in connection with the death of innocent civilians. Washington's support for the Kurdish movements, which Ankara considers to be associated with the PKK and therefore terrorist, is cited as the reason.
According to Turkish media news reports, among the almost 100 objects hit in the first couple of days of Operation Talon-Sword, there were also SDS bases that were erected with the help of the Americans and used by them to train the Kurdish militia. "The operation "Claw-Sword", which we launched on November 19, is being conducted in the northern regions of Iraq and Syria. This is the largest, most comprehensive and most effective operation of the Turkish Air Force against terrorist organizations in recent times," Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said.
Speaking to members of the country's parliament, he provided statistical data. According to the head of the military department, since July 2015, 36,854 terrorists have been killed in northern Syria and Iraq, as well as in Turkey itself, including 3,585 this year.
Vladimir Karnozov
