Since less than 15 hours the Syrian Armed Forces have taken full control of the Jibab Marayta oil wells in central Syria. The area is located about 40 km east of Ithriyah along the 42 highway, the main route that connects Salamiyah to Raqqa, the so-called capital of the Islamic State. It is an area rich in crude oil (and Roman remains) and a fundamental source of supply for the Caliphate.
After very hard 4 unit battlesa Mechanized division of the Syrian army (precisely the 555a Brigade) neutralized the strategic hill of Khirbat al-Qusayr. Even the most savage would have participated in the battle Desert Hawks, the regiment Golani (tribute to the Golan to which Syria has never given up, ed.) and the National Defense Forces.
Together with the ISIS terrorists, the militiamen of Aḥrār al-Shām, closely linked to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, would have also fought.
Some Syrian departments would have gone east to the Governorate of Raqqa. The goal would be the road between Sufayah and Soukhanah, decisive for definitively cutting supplies to the Islamic State.
At the last strategic intersection of the 42 there is Resafa, the Roman Sergiopoli with the remains of a very fertile province at the time of Diocletian. There are a few tens of km to the Euphrates and the strategic airport of Tabaqa. The great river has a strong psychological impact because it is the natural route to the south east and to Iraq. A little further south, right on the Euphrates, there is Deir ez-Zur, the center that has resisted Islamist attacks for months and has recently received supplies of men and vehicles from Damascus. Advancing east means closing the jihadist forces in a vice by pushing the area of Raqqa towards isolation. 
The progress of the Damascus troops continues also to the north where the decisive offensive seems to have started to take the Bani Zaid district of Aleppo. The area is close to the most densely populated suburbs of the city and is the frequent target of indiscriminate mortar attacks by terrorists, whose concentration in the area is particularly high.
In the other important northern quadrant of Latakia, the 103esima Commandos brigade of the Republican Guard would be making a tabula rasa of elements of the FSA and of Al Nusra, in its march towards Kinsibba.
It is therefore now clear that ISIS and the militias related to it are in difficulty on all fronts. The last possibility from the political point of view for the Caliphate is the internationalization of the war. The shortest way would be a ceasefire (the prodrome of which was precisely in Munich) with the involvement of troops from friendly countries, in the lead Saudi Arabia. This is the main reason why Damascus niche and continues to hammer the positions of terrorists, strengthened not only by a newfound military superiority but also by new political lymph: according to the former British ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, it is now impossible to exclude the current Syrian government from building a new future for the country.
As we write, the eastward offensive continues. As we argued a few days ago, at least until all spring, weapons will still be talking, but the economic suffocation and the end of external patronage to the fundamentalist militias could change times.
(Photo: SAA)
