ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Illustrative image On March 4, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters recaptured the key town of Tuqad in the western Aleppo countryside from the Syrian Liberation Front (SLF), according to the pro-opposition STEP News Agency. The SLF imposed its control over Tuqad on February 27 after HTS fighters had withdrawn from it without a fight. Syrian opposition sources reported that more than ten fighters of HTS and the SLF had been killed in clashes inside and around Tuqad. Meanwhile, the SLF-linked news agency Madad Press announced that SLF fighters had destroyed six tanks of HTS with rocket-propelled grenades and ATGMs in the town of Tuqad and the villages of al-Sa’adiyah and A’jil around it over the last 48 hours. Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image The STEP News Agency reported that HTS fighters are currently attacking the position of the SLF around the village of al-Sa’adiyah. HTS will likely impose its control over the village in the upco

Illustrative image On March 4, a spokesman of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Brigadier General Ahmad al-Musmari, announced that different parties are set to meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo soon to discuss the unification of Libyan military forces, according to Erem News. Over the last few months, Cairo has hosted five similar meetings between representatives of the LNA, the Libyan Government of National Accord (LGNA) and several other Libyan parties. Brig. Gen. al-Masmari revealed that the sides had agreed during the last meeting in Cairo on March 1 that the General Commander of the LNA, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, will be a top commander of the soon to come unified Libyan military force. Meanwhile, LGNA president Fayez al-Sarraj stressed during a meeting with the LGNA representatives in the Cairo talks that the unification of the military forces “is an absolutely necessary to secure borders and comforting the challenges facing Libya,” according to the Egyptian new

Illustrative image The Turkish Armed Forces are ready to clear the Syrian city of Manbij from “terrorists” [i.e. the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces de-facto dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units], Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on March 5, according to the country’s media. He went further and said that Operation Olive Branch, which is now ongoing in the YPG-held area of Afrin will continue throughout northern Syria to the border with Iraq. Erdogan also accused the YPG of displacing Arabs from Manbij. Meanwhile, the Turkish Armed Forces’ general staff claimed that at least 2,777 “terrorists” had been neutralized since the start of the operation in Afrin on January 20.