Air Strikes in Khan Sheikhoun — Kfar Zita — Latamina area, 16 March 2017

While the Russian military is bitterly complaining about the inability of the Assad-Regime’s intelligence services and the ‘military’ (of…

While the Russian military is bitterly complaining about the inability of the Assad-Regime’s intelligence services and the ‘military’ (of which there is very little left) to timely warn of incoming insurgent offensives like latest ones in eastern Damascus and northern Hama, there is at least circumstantial evidence that such complaints are not entirely fair.

From monitoring reports by Sentry Syria, it appears there was some sort of ‘special operation’ launched by the SyAAF on 16 March 2017, targeting the area between Khan Sheikhoun (southern Idlib), and Kfar Zita and Latamina, in northern Hama.

This began around 19.35hrs local time when the first L-39 — which took off from Hama — was reported while appearing over Kfar Zita, and continued for the next two hours. If all the sorties reported by Sentry Syria during that period went in the same direction, this operation included attacks by a total of 7 L-39s, 1 Su-24, and 5 helicopters. That’s a significant concentration of firepower. Nearly all of these were launched from Hama; the Su-24 was (apparently) from Shayrat AB — which means there was some ‘coordination’ in all of these air strikes, too.

If my interpretation of related reports is correct, this would have been the most intensive operation of this kind by the SyAAF since the fall of Eastern Aleppo, back in mid-December 2016. And, it hit precisely the area where the FSyA and the HTS were massing their forces for the offensive launched on 21 March. Furthermore, this would have been the — so far — most intensive nocturnal operation of the SyAAF I’ve ever heard about.