A battalion of the Russian military police was deployed to Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry reported late on December 23. The battalion entered liberated districts of the city to defend law and order. This was the first deployment under combat conditions of this branch of the Russian Armed Forces since its creation in 2010.
Media reports and local sources say that Russian military personnel secured airports in Aleppo and Damascus and were spotted in the Tyas Airbase, a key Syrian army defense locality in fighting against ISIS in the province of Homs. Last weekend, the battle between ISIS and government forces there turned into a static warfare with the Syrian army, Hezbollah and the National Defense Forces were repelling the terrorists’ attempts to advance in the region. But government will have to work actively if they want to create conditions for a successful offensive operation against the terrorist group.
On December 24, the Syrian army and Hezbollah launched a military operation against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) in the Wadi Barada area, northwest of Damascus. The army’s goal in the area is to push remaining militants to surrender and withdraw from the area. As SF predicted, after the liberation of Aleppo, government forces focused on operations to clean the remaining pockets near the Syrian capital.