Syria is heading towards a new round of escalation. The country was shaken by a number of security and military developments in the last few days.

In Greater Idlib, al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation continue to challenge the ceasefire.

On June 15, two rockets were launched at the Armenian town of Kaseb in the northern countryside of Lattakia. The rockets were reportedly launched by HTS to commemorate the horrific Lattakia  offensive that happened in 2014.

A day after the attack, the Syrian Arab Army ambushed a reconnaissance group of the Sham Legion, a faction of the NFL, after it advanced in the outskirts of the town of Saraqib in southern Idlib.  Two militants from the group and two others from HTS were killed in the ambush and the clashes that followed it.

The recent provocations in Greater Idlib were likely meant to distract the SAA from Turkish threats to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

In the northern region, the Turkish military and its proxies continue to harass the SDF. On June 15, a Turkish Kargu loitering munition was shot down near the SDF-held town of Manbij.

Turkey is trying to provoke the SDF into a military response and use it as a pretext for a new operation in northern and northeastern Syria.

On June 16, another serious development took place in the northern Aleppo countryside. A US airborne force conducted a raid in the Turkish-occupied town of al-Humayrah. The US-led coalition said that an experienced ISIS bomb maker was captured there. The terrorist was identified as Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi.

The US-led coalition’s decision to launch a complex raid to nab al-Kurdi, who was hiding in a Turkish-occupied village, is a sign of poor cooperation between Washington and Ankara.

On June 16, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out airstrikes on positions of US-backed Maghaweir al-Thowra in the southeastern Syrian area of al-Tanf, where the US-led  coalition maintains a garrison.

The airstrikes were reportedly a response to an attack with a roadside bomb that resulted in Russian military casualties. Russia blamed MaT for the attack. The US-led coalition was alerted ahead  of the airstrikes. MaT claimed that the airstrikes resulted in some material losses only.

The Russian airstrikes on al-Tanf were likely warning to the US-led coalition and its proxy, who continue to use the area as a forward base for sabotage.

Overall, it appears that the situation in Syria is worsening. A new round of military confrontation will likely break out in the country soon. The threat is at its highest in the northern and  northeastern regions, where Turkey could launch an operation against the SDF.

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