The 54 factions of the Free Syrian Army’s “Southern Front Brigades” launched five attacks during their large-scale summer offensive to capture Dara’a City; however these attacks proved unsuccessful, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) fended off all of the enemy’s repeated infiltration attempts.
Last week, the commanders of the Southern Front Brigades announced the end of this offensive they dubbed “Operation Southern Storm” after they failed to gain any significant ground inside of the provincial capital; this was coupled with the loss of a substantial amount of their fighters at the Al-Manishiyah and Al-Sina’a (Industrial) Quarters.
For the Syrian Armed Forces, the Southern Front’s failure was an opportunity for them to regroup and recapture the ground they lost to the rebel factions after they were on the defensive for most of this year.
On Monday morning, they did just that: the Syrian Arab Army’s 15th Brigade of the 5th Armored Division – in coordination with the National Defense Forces (NDF) – recaptured the last nine building blocks inside the Al-Manishiyah Quarter, clearing out the remaining buildings of all rebel fighters.
Elsewhere, the Syrian Arab Army Army killed a number of rebel militants and destroyed their armored vehicles at the southwestern flank of Khirbat Ghazaleh and Jisr al-Ghariyah in Daraa countryside.
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the Syrian Armed Forces carried out an operation that targeted the rebel defensive positions and supply routes at the western entrance of the Old Customs building and the Police Housing Compound, while also targeting the road near the al-Hamza and al-Abbas Mosques inside Daraa al-Balad neighborhood
