On November 26th local time, General Alexander Sirsky, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, announced that defense alone cannot win the war, and he will command the army to launch a new round of counterattacks.

Upon hearing this news, the first reaction of most people is, are you joking? What is the decline of the Ukrainian army in 2024? Apart from some highlights in Kursk, other fronts have suffered consecutive defeats.

In addition, with Mr. Trump coming back soon, Ukraine’s external assistance is likely to be significantly reduced. It would be good to keep the existing front. What should we do to counter attack? Is this a joke?

However, it turned out that Silski was not joking.

Just one day later, on November 27th, the extremist organization “Sham Liberation Front (HTS)” entrenched in Idlib province in northwestern Syria suddenly launched a massive attack on the Syrian government army.

The government army was caught off guard and the front line suffered a catastrophic collapse. Aleppo, the second largest city with a population of over 2 million, changed hands at lightning speed in just a few days, leaving only a small part of the northern urban area in the hands of the government army.

The other areas have all fallen under the control of HTS, while its servants, TIP (Turkestan Islamic Party), are advancing southward.

A large number of towns, including Khan Sheikhun and Ma’arrai Nuaman, were taken over by TIP almost without fighting. The government army ran very fast, and TIP chased closely behind, once entering Hama city.

Fortunately, the government army reacted and organized a counterattack in the northern part of Hama city, successfully stabilizing their position. Unfortunately, the situation in Aleppo is likely irreversible, and losing the second largest city will be a heavy blow to the Syrian government.

And this has brought great trouble to Russia.

The Syrian government is an ally of Russia and Iran, and it cannot be saved without assistance. However, if it is saved, a considerable amount of resources will have to be allocated, which will fall into the trap of Silsky.

Originally, what Silsky said about a counterattack was true, but the location was in Syria, not Ukraine.

The question is, why did the government army suffer a defeat? Why has the combat effectiveness of HTS suddenly increased?

01

At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the Syrian government army launched a fierce attack on the Idlib province where the terrorist organization HTS was entrenched, attempting to liberate this terrorist organization’s headquarters in one fell swoop.

HTS failed to withstand the attack of the government forces, and the front retreated one after another. Türkiye could not sit still when the victory of the government forces was in sight.

If the government forces liberate Idlib, HTS and other terrorist organizations are annihilated, Türkiye’s interests will be seriously damaged. After all, many of these terrorist organizations have been supported by Türkiye.

Erdogan has a clear purpose. If terrorist organizations create chaos in Syria, Türkiye can fish in troubled waters. Although Türkiye is often troubled by terrorist organizations, this does not prevent it from supporting terrorist organizations and finding trouble with others.

Since 2016, while the Syrian government is busy with civil war, Türkiye has sent troops to control more than 10000 square kilometers of territory in northern Syria and supported a puppet regime – the Syrian National Army, or SNA for short.

Simply put, SNA. After the Syrian civil war in 2011, the West and Türkiye joined hands to support the “Syrian Free Army” in order to overthrow the Syrian government. Any opposition of any composition, as long as you oppose the Syrian government, will be put under the banner of this organization.

At its peak in 2013, there were 40000 troops.

But the composition of the Free Army is too complex, with frequent internal battles and weak combat effectiveness. However, they are able to receive a lot of Western aid, and their equipment is really good. In the eyes of other factions, the Free Army is just a gift raised.

The government army and ISIS especially like to practice with the Liberal Army. After 2016, there were few members of the Liberal Army who died or fled. Türkiye felt that it would be meaningless to keep the cover of the Liberal Army.

So based on the remnants of the Free Army, a new “Syrian National Army” was formed, with a force of two or three thousand people. The Syrian land occupied by Türkiye was nominally handed over to SNA for management.

However, the weak combat effectiveness of SNA has always been a problem for Türkiye, so Türkiye has extensively invested in other armed organizations, focusing on the HTS composed of extremists. The more extreme the organization, the stronger the combat effectiveness.

When HTS was about to lose Idlib, Türkiye stepped down in person and carried out air strikes against Syrian government forces, causing dozens of casualties and sending ground forces to attack.

The Syrian army’s offensive was interrupted, and Türkiye’s cost was not small. It lost 26 surveillance drones and 5-10 tanks, and the number of casualties was unknown. Considering that Türkiye occupies the Black Sea Strait and its strategic position is important, it is not convenient for Russia to turn against it.

So, with the help of Russia and Turkey, the Syrian government reluctantly signed a ceasefire agreement with HTS, using the actual control line as the boundary, and the hidden danger of Idlib was left behind.

In addition to Idlib and SNA, Syria also has a large number of warlords and foreign forces, with Kurds controlling a large area on the east bank of the Euphrates River, ISIS controlling a small area, and the southeastern Tanf Mountains region being occupied by the United States.

These forces are not easy to deal with.

Idlib is jointly supported by the United States and Türkiye, the SNA is a puppet of Türkiye, the Kurds are allies of the United States, and the United States itself is stationed in the Tanf Mountain area, the Golan Heights in the southwest, as well as the Israeli aggressors.

The only thing the Syrian government can deal with is ISIS, so there is no hope of restoring national unity in the short term. The specific situation map is as follows:

The green area in the northwest is Idlib, the blue is SNA, and the green area in the southeast is Mount Tanf.

Faced with this situation, the Syrian government is a bit numb. On the one hand, it is unlikely to be overthrown by the opposition again, and its life is temporarily in danger;

On the other hand, reclaiming territory is unlikely.

Unable to enter or die, caught in an awkward position, the mentality gradually turned to lying flat, and after rounds of veteran demobilization, the military’s combat effectiveness significantly declined. Of course, this is not entirely a subjective choice of Bashar, but rather a limitation of objective factors.

After the 2011 civil war, Syria’s entire country was devastated and its economy collapsed, with GDP dropping from $67.5 billion in 2011 to $8.98 billion in 2021.

The economy is fractured, and the finance is bound to be fractured as well. Military salaries are only one or two hundred yuan, and high-level positions are not much higher.

If we can control the oil fields, perhaps our finances and economy will still be saved. But the fact is that the Kurds control most of the oil fields, and the US military continues to steal oil every day. The unsustainable Syrian government can only resort to various measures, such as receiving over 60% of commercial taxes at one point.

Even so, it is still impossible to supply a large army.

This is still the situation before 2020, and it will be even worse after 2020.

The outbreak of the epidemic has forced some resources to be allocated for epidemic prevention. The outbreak of the Russia Ukraine war has also led to external inflation. In 2023, according to the World Bank’s assessment, Syria’s inflation rate will be over 60%.

Moreover, Russia is one of the main aid providers to Syria, and now it has to fully invest in the Ukrainian battlefield, so the amount of aid it can provide to Syria is limited.

In February 2023, a major earthquake occurred in Türkiye, which affected northern Syria, causing thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of buildings collapsed, and the economy suffered another heavy blow. In addition, the West has never relaxed sanctions against Syria for more than a decade.

Under so many blows, Syria’s economy and finances have long collapsed, and there is no place to support a large army. Since 2020, a large number of veterans have been discharged, and the government army, in terms of quantity and quality, is not as good as before.

Helpless, they could only concentrate their extremely limited resources on the elite units of the 4th Armored Division and the 25th Special Forces Division, and could not control anything else. The key to the fall of Aleppo this time was that the defending 18th Division almost fled without fighting.

The 18th Division is nominally a division, but in reality, including civilian personnel, the total strength is less than 4000 people, and the organization is severely incomplete (the normal organization of a division is over 8000 people). And during the continuous attacks on the Syrian government, its opponents were not idle.

Especially the extremists in Idlib province.

02

After the ceasefire in 2020, Idlib has gathered a large number of extremists from various factions and countries.

Such a complex composition is impossible without fighting, and this dog to dog internal struggle has been jokingly referred to as the ‘Idlib Cup’ by netizens.

The ultimate winner of the Idlib Cup was the Sham Liberation Organization founded by Abu Muhammad al Jurani.

Before 2011, when Jurani was still unknown, he was the representative of ISIS’s branch in Syria. Taking advantage of the Syrian civil war, he founded the extremist organization “Nusra Front”, which was the Angel Wheel of ISIS.

However, Zhulani felt that following ISIS had no future. At that time, ISIS was not yet large and did not rise to power until late 2013 or early 2014. Before this time, the strongest terrorist organization was still Al Qaeda.

Julani joined Al Qaeda with the Nusra Front and quickly received multiple rounds of financing from Al Qaeda, becoming its Syrian branch and rapidly expanding its team.

However, after 2014, the Nusra Front began to decline.

On the one hand, the Nusra Front is relatively capable of fighting among many opposition groups, and government forces often target it;

On the other hand, due to its nature as the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, it is undoubtedly a terrorist organization, and both Russia and the United States have given special attention to the Nusra Front;

The newly emerging ISIS also dislikes this’ traitor ‘and both sides often fight.

Two fists are no match for four hands, and the “Nusra Front” gradually cannot hold on, retreating into Idlib province, along with a large number of armed organizations from other factions.

The reason for this is the new model adopted by the government army. Since 2015, the government army has been using the strategy of “surrounding but not attacking” when facing tough cities that are easily difficult to defeat.

Capture the surrounding areas, cut off supplies, and negotiate with the government army if the defending side cannot hold on. The armed militants give up heavy weapons and leave, and the city is handed over to the government army. In order to avoid too many casualties, the government army generally agrees.

Most of these armed groups fled to Idlib, forming the foundation of the Idlib Cup. In the first round of the Idlib Cup, secular factions such as the Free Army were eliminated, while the rest were all extremist factions.

Everyone was competing with each other to see who was more extreme, and the two most competitive teams were the Islamic Front and the Nusra Front. Jurani dealt a heavy blow to the top of the Islamic Front through a series of bloody tactics.

In the absence of a leader, the Nusra Front successfully annexed most of the forces of the Islamic Front and, after countless battles, won the Idlib Cup, basically unifying various armed organizations.

At this point, Zhulani needs to pursue dignity. The Nusra Front has long been associated with Al Qaeda and has a bad reputation, so it needs to change its vest. So the Nusra Front transformed into the Sham Liberation Organization, abbreviated as HTS.

Sham means’ north ‘, and Julani also announced that he would openly distance himself from Al Qaeda.

After integrating various feudal lords, HTS became even more stubborn than before, but in terms of religious strategy, it made a surface of moderation, allowing Christian churches to open for business at one point (later closed again).

This is not a change in HTS, it’s just a situation that requires some temporary measures.

However, these moderation strategies make Türkiye and the United States feel that HTS can be used. Türkiye’s original attitude towards HTS is very complicated, and it does not want it to be destroyed by the Syrian government army, but also thinks that HTS is too extreme.

Many people may think that Erdogan’s overall pursuit of religion is extreme enough, right? However, in the eyes of HTS, Sudan is not Islamic at all, and conflicts between the two sides have not occurred once or twice.

After the HTS pretended to be moderate, the United States and Türkiye increased their assistance, asking for guns and guns, and their troops expanded to 30000 to 50000, gradually gaining the ambition of making a big news.

And the opportunity will come soon.

After 2024, Ukraine fell into an unprecedented decline on the Russian Ukrainian battlefield, with only a few highlights in Kursk, occupying hundreds of square kilometers, and other fronts repeatedly retreating.

To reverse the trend, we must change our mindset. Going to Syria to cause trouble and getting together with the terrorist organization HTS is a good way. Actually, it’s not a secret that Ukraine and HTS got together.

The “communication” between the two sides began very early. Ukraine sent a large number of instructors to Idlib for training, while HTS sent personnel to the Ukrainian battlefield for practical training.

After sufficient preparation, HTS launched an attack on the Syrian government army. The first step was a tentative attack on November 27-28, which was not too large in scale and was thought to be just harassment at the time;

The second step was to suddenly deploy tens of thousands of troops from the 29th, breaking through the Syrian army’s defense line. When the defense line was torn apart, HTS’s pickup truck team checked in and took photos everywhere, along with a large amount of real, fake and fake information warfare.

In the context of information warfare, the Syrian army was at a loss, their morale wavered, and scenes of rushing to retreat emerged;

The third step is to chase the retreating Syrian army with a pickup truck, making it unable to reorganize its defense line and forcing it to retreat again.

Do you feel a sense of familiarity? That’s right, the entire process is very similar to the ‘Kursk Offensive’.

The Syrian army has been fighting against low-level terrorist organizations for a long time, and I have never seen such high-end gameplay. I was suddenly stunned and suffered a catastrophic retreat, losing dozens of towns including the second largest city Aleppo in just a few days.

On December 1, Kiev Post, one of the mainstream media in Ukraine, published an article entitled “Syrian rebels trained by Ukraine and funded by Türkiye attacked Aleppo”.

The article clearly states, “Rebel groups in the Idlib region, reportedly including members of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), received combat training from the Ukrainian Intelligence Service (HUR)’s special forces of the Himik Group. The training team focused on tactics developed during the Ukrainian war, including the use of drones

The article also explicitly mentioned that on September 15th, HUR’s special forces launched an attack on a Russian military base located in the southeast suburbs of Aleppo. From these, it can be seen that the Ukrainian authorities may have been involved in the Syrian situation.

It’s hard to say exactly how much weight there is.

03

The current situation is quite uncomfortable for Russia.

Firstly, the Latakia province in Syria has Russia’s only military base in the Middle East, which is extremely important. The Bashar al Assad government is also a long-term ally of Russia, and these factors determine that Syria must be saved.

As long as resources are allocated to Syria, the amount that can be used for the Russia Ukraine battlefield will decrease, which is beneficial for Ukraine.

Secondly, the chaos in Syria may disrupt Russian Turkish relations.

As I said earlier, Türkiye wants to fish in the troubled waters of Syria, but after 2020, the situation is relatively calm and there is no chance. Now there is trouble again. Does Egypt and Sudan have no idea?

impossible.

In the past two years, the support rate of Egypt and Sudan has been low. If they can “expand their territory” in Syria, their support rate will be saved. As long as Türkiye cannot resist, the contradiction with Russia will increase, and then increase the assistance to Ukraine.

However, I am afraid that the most troublesome person for Syria’s chaos is Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump wants to cut off Ukraine’s aid and end the Russian Ukrainian war as soon as possible so as to concentrate resources on “returning to the Asia Pacific”. However, the chaos in Syria has greatly increased the difficulty of ending the Russian Ukrainian war.

Because Israel will definitely have ulterior motives and increase its fire after seeing the resurgence of chaos in Syria. The more chaotic Syria is, the more it aligns with Israel’s interests.

Originally, the Syrian war and the Ukrainian battlefield were completely unrelated, but now the situation is like linking the two battlefields together. Israel’s interests are linked to the Ukrainian battlefield.

So the question arises, at this moment, is Israel still willing to surrender Ukraine to Russia? If Ukraine surrenders, Israel will lose a valuable ally on the Syrian battlefield, which is not in line with its own interests.

Mr. Trump can not care about the opinions of other countries, but he cannot care about Netanyahu’s opinions. We can’t jump to conclusions about whether the Democratic Party is behind it, but we can be sure that Mr. Trump’s established plan is in big trouble.

This is a mixed story for China, and the good news is that Mr. Trump is less likely to “unite Russia against China”;

The worry is that once the Syrian government falls, there will be a 100% pro Western regime coming to power, and don’t forget that there are many terrorists who have fled from the west within HTS. This group of people is not good news for us.

The scariest thing is that now there are two battlefields linked together, so will there be more countries and battlefields joining the “linkage” in the future?

It’s terrifying to think about.

Although no one wants the ‘Three Wars’, it must be admitted that the current world situation is heading towards the’ Three Wars’.

Braking is difficult.

We still need to prepare early. We don’t want that day to come, but whether that day will come or not is not subject to our will.