So Beard: ISIL Fighters Cut Losses and Flee Russian Airstrikes for Turkey
ISIL fighters appear to be shaving off their beards before fleeing to Turkey to escape Russian airstrikes.
The photos released on social media show large numbers of cut-off beards lying on the ground, intermixed with razors.According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, as many as 100 fighters are leaving Syria for Turkey every day. Al-Nusra Front fighters are said to have made their way into Turkey via the Reyhanli crossing while ISIL fighters flee north through Jarabulus.
Iraqi Fighter Jets Target ISIL Convoy in Salahuddin Province
”The Iraqi Sukhoi fighter jets conducted an airstrike on the terrorists’ convoy near Shirqat, resulting in destruction of the ISIL gatherings and vehicles,” the Iraqi sources said.
“The Iraqi airstrike destroyed a convoy of the ISIL military vehicles, which try to dispatch various military equipment to Mosul,” the military source went on to say.
On Thursday, the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Commission announced that given the rapid advances of the Iraqi armed forces in Salahuddin, the Northern province will be freed completely in the next few days.
“We promise people the freedom of most parts of Salahuddin province except al-Sharqat region and that region will also be fully liberated in coming days,” member of the Security and Defense Commission Qassem al-A’raji was quoted as saying by Arabic-language Soumeriya News channel on Thursday.
“The majority of armed gangs are demoralized. Discontent with field commanders is growing amid the fighters, and there are instances of disobeying orders,” senior Russian General Andrey Kartapolov told a media briefing, RT reported.
Cases of desertion among the jihadists are no longer isolated, with them now fleeing “en masse,” the colonel general, who heads operations in the Russian general staff, added.
Since Russia launched airstrikes against ISIL in Syria following a request by President Bashar Assad, around 530 strikes have been conducted by its Air Force. Hundreds of terrorists and dozens of command posts, depots and other ISIL infrastructure have been destroyed.
According to the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, militants were forced to retreat under Russia’s strikes, as they have lost large amounts of weapons and military equipment on the contact line with the Syrian Army.
Russian Warplanes Destroy 456 ISIL Targets in Syria since September 30
Over the past week, the Russian fighter jets carried out 394 sorties, destroying 46 command and communication posts, 6 explosives manufacturing facilities, 22 warehouses and fuel depots, along with 272 militant positions, strongpoints and field camps, General Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff told Sputnik during a briefing.
“Most armed formations are demoralized. There is growing discontent with field commanders, and there is evidence of disobedience. Desertion is becoming widespread,” Kartapolov told reporters.
Around 100 extremists cross the Syria-Turkey border each day, Kartapolov said citing intelligence data, adding that evidence suggests the militants are leaving combat zones through refugee routes.
“I would like to point out once again, our aircraft carry out strikes against the militants infrastructure based on data provided through several intelligence channels as well as intel supplied by the information center in Baghdad,” Kartapolov said, referring to accusations that Russian warplanes had hit targets other than ISIL.
“We only attack targets held by internationally-recognized terrorist groups. Our warplanes do not operate in the Southern regions of Syria where, according to our intel, units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) operate,” Kartapolov said.
Kartapolov said some of the airstrikes carried out by the US-coalition target civil facilities.
“It is against our principles to advise our colleagues which targets to strike. However, on October 11 a power plant and an electrical substation were destroyed by coalition warplanes in the vicinity of Tell-Alam,” he told foreign military attaches and journalists attending the briefing.
At the same time, he stressed that Russia had repeatedly asked coalition members to share intelligence on the ISIL positions, but none of these requests were met.
“So we went ahead and created comprehensive map of areas controlled by ISIL, based on our intel and on data provided by the information center in Baghdad,” said Kartapolov.
Russia started precision airstrikes against the ISIL targets in Syria on September 30, following a request from Syria’s internationally recognized government. The Russian airstrikes hit targets that are chosen based on intelligence collected by Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The army said that the towns of Hadadin al-Gharbiyeh and al-Kassarat and al-Madajen areas in the olive farms have been recaptured by the Syrian army and Hezbollah forces in their Friday morning operation against the militant groups positions.
The source noted that the army units are hunting down the runaway terrorists in areas they are advancing.
Also on Friday, the Syrian Armed Forces and the Hezbollah fighters, with Russia’s air backup, recaptured three more areas in their operations against militants’ positions in the Southern flanks of the Northern city of Aleppo.
The sources said that, the Syrian Army, in coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF), and Kata’ebat Al-Ba’ath (Al-Ba’ath Battalions), launched their large-scale Southern Aleppo offensive in the Azzan Mountains at 10 a.m. (Damascus Time) on Friday morning.
The Syrian Armed Forces and Lebanese Resistance captured 3 new sites from the militants Jabhat Al-Shamiyah (Levantine Front), Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham (Ahrar Al-Sham Movement), and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) this morning, killing a number of enemy combatants in the process of their advance in the Aleppo’s Southern countryside, massdar reported.
The Syrian army troops and Lebanese Resistance captured the villages of ‘Abtayn, and Qala’at Al-Najam, along with the Defense Battalion Base and the farms surrounding it; this rapid progress by the pro-government forces caught the militants off-guard, as they frantically retreated to the Southwest in order to evade the swarming enemy fighters.
The main objective of the Syrian Armed Forces-Lebanese Resistance’s Southern Aleppo offensive is to recapture the ‘Azzan Mountains from the terrorists, while also creating a larger buffer-zone around the Syrian government’s only highway leading to the provincial capital.
The sources said that a long convoy of the militants’ vehicles, loaded with weapons and ammunition, were targeted and destroyed in the Syrian army troops’ offensive in Dar al-Kabira.
The sources further added that tens of terrorists were also killed in the Syrian soldiers’ attack.
On Wednesday, Chechen-born Abu Bakr al-Shishani, the top commander of Ahrar al Sham terrorist group in Homs province, was killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria.
The sources said that the early morning attacks of the Russian fighter jets weakened the militants groups, who did not able to regroup and failed to defend their positions against the Syrian army troops and Hezbollah fighters.
The Russia’s Friday air attacks left scores of the militant groups from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Ahrar al-Sham and Jabahat al-Shamiya killed or wounded, local witnesses told massdar.
Military sources said on Friday that the Syrian Armed Forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, with the Russia’s aerial backup, recaptured three more areas in their operations against the militants’ positions in Southern flanks of the Northern city of Aleppo.
The Syrian army troops and Lebanese Resistance captured the villages of ‘Abtayn, and Qala’at Al-Najam, along with the Defense Battalion Base and the farms surrounding it; this rapid progress by the pro-government forces caught the militants off-guard, as they frantically retreated to the Southwest in order to evade the swarming enemy fighters.
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