
Yury Veselov, military observer, Inforos
Yet another ceasefire agreement between the Syrian governmental troops and militant units took effect starting midnight on June 14. The agreements were reached at Russia's initiative through Turkey's mediation. In general, the ceasefire is observed.
It was announced that the decision was made in order to evacuate civilians from the combat zone through two main humanitarian corridors in the south of the Idlib province and the northwest of the Hama province. According to the Turkish military leadership, several camps accommodating up to 100,000 internally displaced persons from the "Idlib zone" were deployed near Damascus.
The Turkish military leadership also showed readiness to negotiate with representatives of the Syrian Liberation Front (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, a terrorist organization banned in Russia) and other extremist organizations in order to induce peace. However, the mechanism of achieving this goal is still unknown.
Actually, the attacking governmental troops need a pause as both sides sustained serious personnel losses and the offensive against the militants had started to choke. It seems that the Syrian army command underestimated the power and possibilities of the enemy. Despite many-thousand losses the enemy continued offering fierce resistance skillfully maneuvering its troops and forces.
Offensive combat actions indicate that there is a lack of interaction between the Syrian governmental army and Iran's units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Shia militia units under their control that often ignore fulfilling the set tasks. Meanwhile, field commanders of terrorist units accurately and swiftly profit from this to secure success.
Noteworthy, militants will use the yet another ceasefire to regroup forces, and the Turkish military leadership is unlikely to induce terrorist units loyal to them to fulfill any provision that may create preconditions for peace in the region. Declaring its "humanitarian" activity, Turkey is absolutely not interested in increasing the number of refugees near its borders. The main thing for Turkey is to keep as many militants as possible so that to use them in combating Syrian Kurds eastwards the Euphrates.