Syrian army advances on Deir Ezzor, storms Al-Sukhnah - Update: ISIS defeated in Al-Sukhnah

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sat, 05 Aug 2017 17:17 UTC

Latest reports from the fighting in Syria speak of an intense battle between the Syrian army and ISIS for control of the central Syrian town of Al-Sukhnah on the main highway between Palmyra and Deir Ezzor.

Ten days ago the Syrian army appeared confident that it would storm Al-Sukhnah with little difficulty. It is now clear however that the Syrian army seriously underestimated ISIS's determination to hold onto the town.

ISIS's determination to hold on to Al-Sukhnah is undoubtedly driven by recognition that Al-Sukhnah is the last important point of resistance standing between the Syrian army and the besieged eastern city of Deir Ezzor, even if tens of kilometres of desert road lie between them. For that reason ISIS - which has redeployed many of its fighters and most of its leadership to Deir Ezzor province - appears to have resolved to hold on to Al-Sukhnah at all costs.

With the Syrian army gradually enveloping Al-Sukhnah this is likely to prove for ISIS a costly strategy, with the lives of many of its fighters sacrificed to hold on to the town. However given the increasingly desperate situation in which ISIS finds itself, it does make a kind of sense.

Regardless, the result is that for the moment the Syrian army's fight to capture Al-Sukhnah has stalled, with the Syrian army said to have suffered heavy casualties in its attempt to storm the town.

Meanwhile there are the first indications that with ISIS throwing more and more of its fighters into the fight for Al-Sukhnah, ISIS's pressure on the Syrian garrison defending Deir Ezzor is slackening.

The Syrian troops defending Deir Ezzor have been on the defensive ever since a US air raid on their positions last September enabled ISIS to break their main defence line protecting the town. The situation then deteriorated further last winter when ISIS successfully severed the communications between the Syrian garrison inside the town and the town's airport.

Since the winter repeated attempts by the Syrian troops in Deir Ezzor to break through ISIS's lines to the airport and to link up once with the Syrian troops there have been unsuccessful. With road access to the airport lost, and with the close proximity of ISIS fighters to the airport's runway making the landing of fixed wing aircraft there impossible, the Syrian troops defending both Deir Ezzor itself and the airport have had to be resupplied by helicopter, in a perilous journey carried out usually at night.

Recently however a minor attack by the Syrian garrison in Deir Ezzor against the ISIS fighters occupying the town's cemetery - whose recapture is essential if road links between the town and the airport are to be restored - met with unexpected success, suggesting that many of the best ISIS fighters defending the cemetery have been redeployed to other fronts, especially to Al-Sukhnah. The Syrian troops in Deir Ezzor now appear to be preparing to build on this unexpected success by making a renewed attempt to recapture the whole cemetery.

Regardless of what happens in Deir Ezzor, the Syrian army's recapture of Al-Sukhnah is only a matter of time. Probably the fight there will be over within the next few days. If so the Syrian army's advance towards Deir Ezzor will resume at a faster pace.

BREAKING: Syrian army 'storming Al-Sukhnah'

No sooner had I finish my last article on the bitter fight between the Syrian army and ISIS for the key town of Al-Sukhnah, then news came of a collapse of ISIS defences in the town.

The report from the highly reliable and well-informed Al-Masdar news agency reads as follows

The Islamic State's (ISIL) reign of terror in Al-Sukhnah is near its end, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) swarms the city from several axes.

According to a soldier from the 5th Corps, the Syrian Army has entered Al-Sukhnah from three different axes, forcing the Islamic State militants to retreat towards the city-center.

The soldier added that the battle for Al-Sukhnah could end tonight because the Islamic State is surrounded from several axes and greatly outnumbered by the Syrian Army.

Al-Sukhnah is a strategic city that is located northeast of Palmyra and along the main highway to Deir Ezzor.

Liberating Al-Sukhnah will put the Syrian Army in position to enter the Deir Ezzor Governorate from its western axis for the first time in over two years.

As is often the way in war the collapse, when it came, was sudden. The event which seems to have precipitated it was the failure of a counter-attack by ISIS against the Syrian troops attempting to liberate the town. It seems that over the course of the fighting ISIS's commander or "emir" in the town - Mu'awiya Al-Hadirmi Al-Zabarjandi - was killed, demoralising the ISIS fighters further and leaving them in a state of confusion. The result is the collapse in ISIS resistance in the town which now appears to be underway.

If ISIS really did plan to hold off the Syrian army at Al-Sukhnah then this attempt looks like it is about to fail. Indeed if ISIS really did redeploy fighters to hold on to the town then this looks to have been a miscalculation, taking fighters away from other fronts and putting them in a place where most of them are likely to be killed by the Syrian army.

Comment: ISIS defeated in Al-Sukhnah

After short but fierce battle Syrian army liberates Al-Sukhnah, the last important urban centre on the road to the eastern ISIS-besieged city of Deir Ezzor.

A few hours after news of the sudden collapse of ISIS resistance in Al-Sukhnah comes confirmation from the Syrian military that the town is now fully liberated from ISIS and that all surviving ISIS fighters have fled from there.

As is becoming the pattern in the Syrian war, this confirmation in English has first appeared in a report carried by the highly reliable and well-informed Al-Masdar news agency, which through an entirely independent and private agency is now practically functioning as a semi-official news agency for the Syrian military. Certainly Al-Masdar's battlefield reporting is consistently more reliable and faster than that provided by the English language service of Syria's official news agency SANA, which as of the time of writing has still not reported the liberation of Al-Sukhnah.

That Al-Sukhnah has indeed been liberated is however on Al-Masdar's past record indisputable, and the wording of Al-Masdar's report of the town's liberation in fact puts the matter beyond doubt.

Al-Sukhnah's liberation from ISIS - two years after its capture by ISIS from the Syrian army in May 2015, during the battles which resulted in ISIS's first capture of Palmyra - now opens the way for the Syrian army to advance to Deir Ezzor.

The distance from Al-Sukhnah to Deir Ezzor city at 110 kilometres is still very long in terms of the distances of the Syrian war. Though the terrain is much easier and flatter than the terrain covered by the road from Palmyra to Al-Sukhnah, the Syrian army must take into account the fact that it is now approaching the territory where ISIS has concentrated most of its fighters, and where its leadership is based. ISIS's supply lines are therefore becoming much shorter, at the same time as the Syrian army's supply lines to its main bases in western Syria are becoming much longer.

That makes an over rapid advance along this road vulnerable to counter-attack and flanking attacks by ISIS, with ISIS repeatedly showing great skill in moving columns of its fighters rapidly across desert territory.

Against that the advancing Syrian column will be accompanied by Russian drones and Russian aircraft providing the Syrian troops with intelligence about the area they are advancing through and of the territory along their flanks, as well as with ground support.

Russian MI-28 helicopter gunships have apparently been seen participating in the fighting for Al-Sukhnah and there are reports that the Russian Aerospace Forces are now using Syria's giant Tiyas air base in central Syria to support the Syrian offensive, with claims that three Russian SU-25 ground attack aircraft have been spotted there.

That ought to make it more difficult for ISIS to concentrate its fighters and to launch surprise attacks on the advancing Syrian troops than was the case earlier in the war, before the Russians came, when ISIS scored most of its successes.

The Syrian army will nonetheless prepare carefully before the advance on Deir Ezzor resumes. A first step will be to consolidate control of Al-Sukhnah itself, clearing the town of the large number of 'IEDs' ('improvised explosive devices' - ie. booby traps) and land mines which Al-Masdar reports the ISIS fighters left behind them when they retreated from the town.

Al-Sukhnah will also have to be secured against possible counter-attack by ISIS, and this may require more troops from western Syria to be sent there.

Probably it will take at least a week - possibly much longer - before the Syrian army's advance on Deir Ezzor can resume. However when it does the way to Deir Ezzor is now open.