Less than a day after the huge failed offensive by the Fateh Halab conglomeration of rebel forces against the predominantly-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud district in Aleppo, the Syrian Army launched a massive offensive on the notorious Bani Zaid district, a neighborhood that devastated the 1.5 million residents of west Aleppo with their mortar shells and Hell Cannons.
Sources claim that the attack was launched from Layramoun and Sheikh Maqsoud after the YPG captured the Youth Housing Complex north of Bani Zaid. If the Syrian Army did indeed launch an attack from Sheikh Maqsoud, then there was clear collaboration between the Syrian government and the Kurdish units. This should not be a surprise given that the Islamists of Aleppo city massacred many Kurdish civilians with Jaish Al-Islam even launching a chemical attack against the district’s occupants.
With the Syrian Army capturing the majority of the aforementioned district, some militants who remain entrenched in parts of the neighborhood have sent pleas to the Syrian Army to permit them to leave the area without any more fighting. This humiliating defeat will have a major impact on the Aleppo battlefields as Bani Zaid was arguably the most fortified district held by the Islamist rebels- being one of the first neighborhoods in Aleppo city to fall to the jihadists.
This unparalleled blunder makes it almost impossible for Jaish Al-Fateh or any other rebel operations room or faction to break the siege imposed on Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods. Notably, all this comes at a precarious time when Ahrar Al-Sham is mobilizing with other factions to attack Jund Al-Aqsa in Idlib and the fertile Ghab plains with the most recent reports indicating that Jund Al-Aqsa has already launched an offensive on Ahrar Al-Sham’s positions in Joseph village located in Idlib’s countryside.
The war in northwestern Syria is no longer looking favorable for the jihadists and to add more salt to their wounds, Turkey’s Erdogan is too busy with the coup to come to the aid of his Islamist patrons.
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