The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Hezbollah, and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have received a huge boost in military personnel recently, as over 1,500 Iraqi and Pakistani Shi’i fighters have made the journey from rural Latakia to the Aleppo Governorate’s southern countryside in order to participate in the long-awaited offensive against both the Islamist rebels and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS).
According to a military source inside the Latakia Governorate, the Syrian Armed Forces and their allies are preparing to launch a large-scale assault on the ‘Azzan Mountains (southern Aleppo), the Deir Hafer Plains (eastern Aleppo), and the Aleppo Infantry Academy (northern Aleppo) after a lack of offensive activity in the last ten months.
Recently, a large convoy of Hezbollah fighters from Al-Zabadani have arrived inside the Aleppo Governorate after spending two months on the offensive the aforementioned resort-city in western Syria; these soldiers from the Lebanese Resistance were said to have taken-up positions along the Syrian Government’s only supply highway in southern Aleppo.