The situation near the Castillo road becomes very interesting.
The Castillo road is the only road to the terrorist-controlled Eastern part of Aleppo which is not under direct control of the Syrian army. But now it is under fire control. That means, everything travelling along that road is in danger of being shot. What can and does happen if one moves along such a road can be seen in a video
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/watch-moment-rebels-walk-massive-artillery-trap/ So, to support the terrorists in Eastern Aleppo with weapons and ammunition becomes problematic.
An interesting point is that Syrian source claim that they do not (at least not yet) try to control the road completely. This would be too easy to attack, from several sides. So, actually the fight is not about the control of the road itself, but of the Southern Mallah farms, the region where one can shoot whatever drives along the Castillo road. This is the really interesting fight during the next days.
So, what one can expect during the next days is, one has to translate: If it sounds like a simple "nothing new", mentioning a lot of Russian bombs, heavy fighting and heavy casualties on terrorists side (a type of information one would usually ignore as the usual propaganda if there is no progress to report), it means, in reality, a heavy success of the Syrian army. Because the actual situation in Northern Aleppo, if preserved, would be fatal for the terrorists. They would have no way to support Eastern Aleppo with weapons and ammunition, which in the long term would lead to the loss of Eastern Aleppo. And this would be much more than a symbolic loss, it could play a decisive role in the whole war.
So, the terrorists have, in fact, no other choice but to fight, with all they have, to retake these Southern Al Mallah farms:
See also
Castello.jpg
During the next weeks, Latakia may become interesting again. The SAA has, for the purpose of the (failed) offensive against Daesh at Tabka, weakened their forces there. This has allowed the terrorists even to gain some territory. Not really much - even the weakened forces were able to start some successful attack, but the terrorists have reacted, and with a few hundreds of reinforcements, were able to revert this.
Fortunately, the SAA has given up this Tabka idea now, and left the desert to Daesh. Now, they have send some of the forces to Latakia. We will see in near future if this makes a difference. Behind what happens in Latakia is, of course, a much more important question: What are the consequences of Erdogan's apology to Russia in this domain?
Of course, there is a lot of information missing, one can only speculate about this. But a quite reasonable guess is that there has been some agreement with Russia that Turkey gives up their support for the rebels in Latakia. In this case, the rebel forces there are fair game now for the Syrian army. In this case, it would be, indeed, very reasonable not to care at all about Tabka and, instead, to secure the Turkish border in Latakia.
The other good news comes from the Damascus surroundings, Eastern Ghouta. After the big success in the Southern part of Eastern Ghouta, during the last weeks there has been a quite important progress in the Eastern part. The key towns of this Eastern part, Meyda and Al Bahariya, as well as the road between them is now under control of the Syrian army, and the Syrian army is fighting now for control of safe surroundings of Meyda. So the whole East Ghouta region has been, with the Southern and now Eastern losses, reduced to roughly 50% of what the rebels have controlled last year.
