Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Russian Air Force are escalating attacks on Radical Islamic terrorists who occupy Idlib, killing 30 militants on October 13.
The terrorist groups have been preparing to launch attacks on civilians in northern Syria, including the Idlib countryside, Latakia, and Aleppo.
The SAA has been conducting continuous attacks using heavy artillery and Russian warplanes, targeting Idlib and the western Aleppo countryside over the past few weeks.
On October 12, SAA forces shelled villages west of Aleppo and Idlib countryside with heavy artillery and suicide drones, while targeting terrorist groups.
Idlib has extensive tunnels dug by terrorists over the last 12 years, with one strike targeting an underground vehicle depot near the cannery factory in Idlib city.
Syrian-Russian strikes also hit areas controlled by the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in the hills of Kabani, in Latakia’s countryside west of Idlib.The headquarters of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leaders were targeted as they arrived at a location near the town of Nayrab, between Idlib and Aleppo.
The main terrorist group holding Idlib is HTS and includes the National Liberation Front, part of the Syrian National Army (SNA), alongside Jaish al-Izza.
The leader of HTS is Mohammed al-Julani, a Syrian who grew up in Saudi Arabia. Indoctrinated there in Radical Islam, he traveled to Iraq in 2003 to fight the American Army. While in an American prison in Iraq, he became associated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. Once Julani was released, he went to Syria and founded the first Al Qaeda branch there, Jibhat al-Nusra.
Nusra became the most vicious, and successful armed group in Syria, and the US-sponsored Free Syrian Army (FSA) ceased to exist, having been absorbed within HTS. After years of battles, the SAA regained territory lost, and Idlib became the last remaining terrorist-controlled area.
Baghdadi and his successor were killed by US commandos in Idlib, as the area became a magnet for Radical Islamic terrorists. Perhaps Julani gave the US the location coordinates for the leader of ISIS, even though Julani still has a $10 million bounty on his head from the US government.
Regardless of the terrorist classification of the leader of Idlib, the American media has come to Idlib to interview Julani to re-brand him as a moderate ‘freedom fighter’ and worthy of the support from Washington and the UN. Julani changed the name of his group from Jibhat al-Nusra to HTS because the US and the UN had out-lawed Nusra as a terrorist group.
Experts who research Radical Islamic terrorist groups know that HTS is just a new name, to allow the US and international humanitarian groups to continue to work alongside and support the HTS. As the old saying goes, ‘a leopard can’t change his spots’.
In 2019, a deal was signed between Russia and Turkey, in which Turkey guaranteed the safe passage of cars, trucks, and buses between Latakia and Aleppo on the M4 highway. However, Turkey never fulfilled their promise.Turkey, a US ally, participated in the Obama-designed US-NATO attack on Syria for ‘regime change’.
Turkey became the staging ground and transit hub for the international terrorist groups coming to Syria through the border at Idlib.One of the terrorist groups is the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which is made up of Chinese citizens known as Uyghurs. About 3,500 TIP terrorists live in Idlib and speak Turkic, the root language of Turkey. President Erdogan of Turkey expedited their travel from western China to Idlib.However, Erdogan wants to restore his relationship with the Assad government in Damascus.
With Turkey’s economy in ruins, it is important to get the Syrian business back, which was the biggest export destination of Turkish goods before 2011.In mid-summer 2024, Turkey fought several battles against their former ally, the Idlib terrorists, in the Kilic Valley south of Kessab in the north Latakia countryside. Turkey wants to cut ties with the terrorists there but is taking faltering steps in the process, perhaps in consideration of the civilians who are in the middle.
President Assad of Syria has asked Turkish occupation forces in Syria to leave before discussion of renewed diplomatic relations. Despite Ankara’s rhetoric, the withdrawal has not happened, but the mid-summer battles by Turkey against the terrorists were promising a change in foreign policy.
Idlib is an agricultural province that lies east of the port of Latakia, and the industrial capital of Syria to the east, Aleppo.Idlib is important because it is a rich olive-growing area, and because it sits on the border with Turkey. In 2011, the first murder victim in Idlib, carried out by the US-supported FSA, was a pharmacist who had been an advocate for secular political values.
He was executed and burned along with his pharmacy. The US-supported FSA were followers of Radical Islam, which is a political ideology, and not a religion or sect, but is followed by some Sunni Muslims. In Saudi Arabia they refer to it as ‘Political Islam’, and it is the fundamental belief system of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and ISIS.
According to Axios, the US has about 900 troops in Syria, of which 100 are tasked with supporting the FSA. The only territory in Syria currently occupied by ‘rebels’ is Idlib.
The Western media refers to Idlib as the “last rebel stronghold”, but when you research who controls Idlib, you find it is HTS, which is a Radical Islamic terrorist group. There are no ‘opposition rebels’ in Syria; only terrorists.There are about 3 million persons in Idlib, and many are unarmed civilians, such as women, children, and the elderly.
These people are used effectively as human shields by the terrorists. For many years, the UN has been warning of a humanitarian disaster in Idlib should it be attacked by Syria or Russia.
The UN, and other Western humanitarian organizations, keep delivering food, medicines, and other supplies to keep the civilians, the ‘human shields’, alive. All the goods delivered pass through the hands of HTS, and are distributed according to their priorities.
People who have complained about the strict Islamic law adhered to by HTS, or the arbitrary arrests, torture, and executions by HTS, do not get their share of the free goods. The undistributed free goods are placed in Julani’s shopping mall, Al Hamra Mall, and sold. The UN enables HTS, and the dictator Julani, to keep the civilians under lock and key, and without a voice to complain.
Humanitarian organizations complained when their warehouses were stormed by the HTS when they offered classes designed for women to gain skills for employment, and the HTS strictly forbids women from attending.
The Turkish-backed SNA held Syrians for ransom on October 14 north of Aleppo. These were Syrians who had been living in Lebanon for years and were attempting to return home to flee the Israeli attack on Lebanon.The SNA set up roadblocks and demanded $100 in ransom from each person they held. 57 were freed after paying the extortion, and the remaining victims who could not pay were being held as hostages in the SNA prisons of al-Bab and Azaz, north of Aleppo.
While the world is watching events in Gaza and Lebanon, perhaps Idlib can be liberated from the terrorist groups holding 3 million as human shields and preventing families and cargo from traveling between Latakia and Aleppo. The terrorists have prevented the full recovery of Aleppo, which was liberated in December 2016 by holding the M4 highway as impassable.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.
