Thread by @CalibreObscura

[THREAD] On the latest raid in SE #Idlib last week, in which 3/4 villages were held for a few hours before a retreat taking quantities of ghanimah.

In a development on previous raids it seems that fairly high quantities of fighters & at at least 2 of HTS' Tank-APCs were used.
1/

Factions taking part included HTS (Seen here preparing), Ansar al-Tawhid (Note RPK magazine), NLF (Only fire support, no fighters appeared to take part), and Incite the Believers operations room.

2/

Fighters seemed fairly well equipped, although not as well as HTS "elite" forces- here AK-74M & BelOMO DNS-1 day/night optic can be spotted.

PG-7V, PG-7VT, & HAR-66/M72 RPGs can be seen, but this is essentially the standard kit of Idlibi fighers, so not of great importance.
3/

There wasn't much combat footage released by HTS or Incite the Believers, although there was a number of regime fighters killed, including at least one senior officer. It appears that most of them simply ran, leaving kit behind.

4/

The main capture seems to have been from SyAA positions north of Barsah [Thank you @john_marquee], in which no less than 4 armoured vehices were captured- 2x BRM-1K, 1x BMP-1, & a T-62 Obr. 1972, all Russian supplied, with the BRM-1K & T-62 likely to be recent.

5/

This wasn't all- a S-60 57mm gun and Ural truck were captured too, although HTS later destroyed them (Presumably as they were hard to move).

Other weapons too: HTS showed off 2x 9P135 Tripod/Launcher, plus 9K111 and 9M113 ATGM. Also seen is an AGS-17.

6/

..as well as the AGS-17 HTS claim 2 DShK-pattern HMG & 1 SPG-9, Incite the Believers showed off 2 more, as well as what appears to be possibly another AGS-17. Ammo was captured also, as well a few mortar shells shown off by Ansar al-Tawhid.

7/

Small arms seen captured are very limited (It's possible that HTS didn't regard them as significant enough to note/show, although some are claimed, likely basic AK platforms). However 2 potent RPO-A thermobaric launchers were also recovered, plus TM-57/TM-62 mines (W/ fuzes)

8/

Whilst this isn't the largest capture (By the overall standards of the Syrian conflict, it's fairly small), it is by far the biggest capture of armour for months, as well as a decent selection of other weapons.

Pictured: Abu Khalid al-Shami of HTS in a video about the raid.
9/

HTS etc. appear to be developing further the use of heavily armoured APCs & motorcycle-bourne troops to conduct raids in force to achieve local overmatch against SyAA positions with the support of ATGM/Artillery.

Ansar al-Tawhid also conducted an ambush with drone overwatch.
10/

Whilst this certainly won't change the extremely likely fate of Idlib, attacks such as this and the ghanimah gained are very likely to slow down regime progress and will assist with the resupply of armed factions.

11/

I expect them to continue, with a focus on quickly overrunning regime positions and withdrawing with the materiel that regime troops so often just run away from.

[END]

cc @MENA_Conflict @AbraxasSpa @oryxspioenkop