In the South there is an active advance along the Syrian-Iraqi border to the Euphrates. The Americans sit at Tanf, but do not actively engage the SAA and Iranian “proxies”.
In Raqqa the SAA is close to solving the problem by cutting off its ledge between Maskanah and Tabqa. Closing of the pincers and digestion of the boiler can be expected within a week.
Reinforcements from the Syrian Arab Army, the National Defense Forces, and Iraqi PMU-affiliated militias continue to pour from all across Syria to east Suweida and Eastern Qalamoun ahead of an anticipated massive offensive aimed at recapturing the Tanf Border Crossing which lies a 100 km from the recently-captured Zaza Checkpoint along the Damascus-Baghdad Highway.
Mohannad Ahmed al-Tallaa, the commander of the rebel battalion stationed at Tanf, said they began working with US troops at the base late last year. A former officer in an elite Syrian army unit, he defected early in the civil war and has been a vital player in the rebel fight in Deir Ezzor, a province in eastern Syrian that has become a major ISIS stronghold. He created the battalion, called Maghaweir Al-Thowra, or Commandos of the Revolution, with the aim of working with the US-backed coalition to free Deir Ezzor from ISIS, he said, adding that he and his men now live with their US partners. “I’m sitting with them right now,” he said when reached by phone on Tuesday night; men with American accents could be heard speaking English in the background.
The Fourth Revolutionary War 