About 1,500 Ahrar al-Sham militants and 6,000 civilians, mostly families of the militants, are set to leave the Harasta area of Eastern Ghouta under an evacuation agreement with the Syrian government on March 22.
Under the agreement militants surrender all of their heavy weapons and get an open corridor towards the militant-held part of the province of Idlib.
Late on March 21, a source in the 4th Armoured Division of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) told SouthFront that militants had started burning their HQs and weapon depots.
If the agreement is successfully implemented, the SAA will get a full control over the urban area of Harasta further isolating the southern part of Eastern Ghouta from the militant-held area of Douma.
Meanwhile, the SAA, the Republican Guard and the Tiger Forces captured a large part of the Ein Tarma farms and entered the town of Hazzah. According to pro-government sources, a major part of Hazzah is now under the government forces control. However, this still has to be confirmed.
The mass evacuation of civilians and humanitarian aid delivers allow the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance to decrease a factor of civilian casualties and human shields usage in the ongoing operation, implementing an Aleppo-like scenario when every evacuated family undermine the militants’ defensive capabilities.
Over 40 tonnes of toxic agents have been found in the areas liberated from militants, Major General Igor Kirillov, said on March 21.
“Damascus has officially confirmed its readiness to assist in any investigation into a chemical attack in Syria. However, international organizations have refused to cooperate with the Syrian government, practically conniving with terrorist organizations in their illegal activity. The Syrian Foreign Ministry pointed out that more than 40 tonnes of chemical warfare agents have been discovered on the territories liberated from terrorists,” Kirillov said recalling frequent accusations of an alleged chemical weapons use against the Damascus government. “At the same time, the international community prefers turning a blind eye to the real facts in which chemical weapons are used in Syria against the government troops and civilians,” he added.
ISIS have captured the whole neighborhood of al-Asali and 90% of al-Madaniyah neighborhood in the al-Qadam district in southern Damascus, the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq claimed. According to Amaq, ISIS has killed 173 SAA soldiers and has destroyed 2 battle tanks, a rocket launcher, a bulldozer and a BMP-1 armored vehicle in clashes for the area.
The Turkish Army and its proxies captured the town of Barad and the village of Kimar south of the city of Afrin following clashes with members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and some government-linked militia there.
After the fall of Afrin, Turkey has slowed down its military operation in the area. However, its forces are still willing and are able to capture some settlements in a de-facto buffer zone between them and the SAA.
Syrian Oil and Gas Production 2010 and 2018.
” Slowly but surely, Syria is heading to produce anywhere between 18-22MM m3/day of gas in 2018 which inches closer to its peek at 24.5MM m3/day in 2010, more plants are still being brought back to production and once the many fields around Palmyra and Sukanah area start up their production (2019), Syria may boost gas output way beyond the 24.5MM m3/day 2010 record. This means power will be stable in Syria throughout the year which will help to lower inflation and overall industry/agriculture/trade developments and investments.
Oil production will leg behind gas, Syria may produce an avg of 50-70,000 barrels in 2018 and heading toward 150,000 in 2019 when most fields under the Syrian Government are productive again.
It is important to mention that most fields east of the Euphrates are not producing or producing very little, without the pumping stations in T2 and T3 to help the oil fields, extraction turns to be a nightmare and unprofitable, meaning the US is just holding those fields to delay Syria’s economic recovery.” (Canthama)
This is very interesting. Why would the US hold unprofitable filed if not just to delay Syria’s recovery. However, now, Bolton may want to do something else…