BEIRUT – The Free Syrian Army-affiliated Southern Front has officially ended its campaign to seize Daraa after the offensive on the provincial capital became bogged down in heavy back-and-forth fighting.
In a statement to anti-Damascus outlet All4Syria, the spokesperson of the rebel coalition said that the “Southern Storm” campaign, which began on June 25, “has ended completely.”
“The operations rooms, which were already present in the sectors around the city in the first place, have gone back to keeping a partial and ramshackle watch,” Southern Front spokesperson Ahdam al-Krad said.
“There are no meetings by the ‘Southern Storm’ operations room at all,” he added.
“The operation formed a kind of frustration among Daraa residents. Tedium and indignation now [mark] the language of discourse in circulation, and there are voices calling for the re-structuring of forces.”
“The battle achieved some results on the ground insofar as it revealed some of their weak points with regard to organization, errors in coordination and other military errors.”