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.
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