The Druze Civil Defense Secure Tha’lah Airbase; Focus Shifted to ISIS in the North

For the second day in-a-row, the Tha’lah Military Airbase has experienced a relative calm after a one week long siege committed by the militants of the Free Syrian Army’s “Southern Front” and Jaysh Al-Yarmouk, resulting in non-stop firefights between the aforementioned groups and the Syrian Armed Forces around the western countryside of the Al-Sweida Governorate of southern Syria.

As a result of the rebel insurgents passiveness at the Tha’lah Military Airbase; this has given the Druze Civil Defense Units, the National Defense Forces (NDF), and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) the opportunity to go on the offensive in the western countryside of Al-Sweida, where they have secured the town of Sikakah and the hills surrounding the Al-Sheikh Hussein Mountains after intense firefights with the enemy combatants from the FSA’s Southern Front and the Syrian Al-Qaeda group “Jabhat Al-Nusra.”

With the situation around Tha’lah Military Airbase under control, the Druze Civil Defense Units and the National Defense Forces have refocused their attention to the northeastern countryside of Al-Sweida, where the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) have entrenched themselves at the town of Al-Qaseer, some 60km from the provincial capital.

The Druze Civil Defense Units – in coordination with the National Defense Forces – carried out their first assault on the militants from ISIS at Tal Binat, killing over 15 enemy combatants and destroying an armored vehicle that was mounted with a 23mm anti-aircraft machine gun at this hill near the town of Al-Qaseer.

If the Druze Civil Defense Units can maintain their success against the Islamist insurgents on both the northeastern and western fronts; this will provide the Syrian Armed Forces a boost in southern Syria, as soldiers from the SAA’s 550th Brigade begin their assault on the ancient city of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of the Homs Governorate.