Russia Deploys Large Number Of Troops, Equipment In Northern Syria

Via Southfront.org,

276 more Russian Military Police officers and 33 additional equipment pieces will be deployed in Syria, Russia’s state media reported. These forces will likely participate in security operations along the Syrian-Turkish border to the east of the Euphrates River.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2_EcVcX9_s]

Additionally to the deployment in Kobane, the Russian Military Police already started carrying out patrols near the city of Qamishly.

On October 24, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin announced that Kurdish forces had started withdrawal from the border area.

Nonetheless, the implementation of the ceasefire is not going without difficulties. On October 24 afternoon, the Syrian Army repelled an attack by Turkish-backed militants near the villages of al-Kozleya and Tell al-Laban in northern al-Hasakah. Clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed groups also took place near the villages of Assadiya, Mishrafa and Manajer.

Pro-Turkish sources say that these attacks were conducted in response to ceasefire violations by Kurdish militias. The Turkish Defense Ministry revealed that 5 soldiers were injured in the Syrian province of al-Hasakah on October 24 in a series of attacks by Kurdish forces. However, the official Turkish version claims that its forces do not violate the ceasefire regime.

The SDF are ready to discuss the idea of joining the Syrian military once a political solution is reached in the war-torn country, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led group, Mustafa Bali, told Russian media. Bali claimed that “all parties must recognize that there is a political crisis that needs to be resolved by political means”. This kind of statements is quite different from the language of ultimatums, which the SDF used when US troops were present in northern Syria. This change indicates that a political solution is in fact can be reached.