What a balancing act being played out!
Just for the record, I have never really bought into the freely making available of the strategic battle plans of the Russian led coalition, so not really surprised if they are not attacking targets as advertised in the press.
What I do suspect is that a degree of flexibility is being retained in order to take advantage of weakness and or disarray, as it occurs.
The recent Government offensive in East Homs seems to have caused ISIS to redeploy very substantial forces away from other fronts. This has allowed the Rebels in North Aleppo to launch; no doubt massively aided by Turkey, a sweeping offensive along the Turkish border, with a presumed intention of building Turkeys long sought buffer zone between the two Kurd controlled areas and therefore stymi attempts to spread and link with each other.
Clearly Russia and Syria is not about to slug it out in East Homs and the roads East against large numbers of well dug in ISIS fighters and so have switched to other objectives, which will leave ISIS able to return its fighters to Aleppo and for them and the Rebels to waste their strength on each other as the Government turns its apparent attention to Idlib.
Again there could be a element of bluff in this one too, as all these SAA redeployments means that Al Nusra and ISIS have to move their forces out of their defences and move to new positions as well. A very dangerous pursuit for forces with no Air Force against the one that has!
Just for the record, I have never really bought into the freely making available of the strategic battle plans of the Russian led coalition, so not really surprised if they are not attacking targets as advertised in the press.
What I do suspect is that a degree of flexibility is being retained in order to take advantage of weakness and or disarray, as it occurs.
The recent Government offensive in East Homs seems to have caused ISIS to redeploy very substantial forces away from other fronts. This has allowed the Rebels in North Aleppo to launch; no doubt massively aided by Turkey, a sweeping offensive along the Turkish border, with a presumed intention of building Turkeys long sought buffer zone between the two Kurd controlled areas and therefore stymi attempts to spread and link with each other.
Clearly Russia and Syria is not about to slug it out in East Homs and the roads East against large numbers of well dug in ISIS fighters and so have switched to other objectives, which will leave ISIS able to return its fighters to Aleppo and for them and the Rebels to waste their strength on each other as the Government turns its apparent attention to Idlib.
Again there could be a element of bluff in this one too, as all these SAA redeployments means that Al Nusra and ISIS have to move their forces out of their defences and move to new positions as well. A very dangerous pursuit for forces with no Air Force against the one that has!
... and I don't know Arabic, so before commenting, I'll wait in my armchair for let's say three videos saying they show what the other videos say they show