Southwestern Daraa offensive (February 2017)

The offensive[edit]

In preparation for the offensive, the ISIL affiliate was secretly supplied with intelligence and ammunition by members of three rebel factions in exchange for money. Recruited ISIL supporters, which included municipal employees, women and children as young as 12, had also helped to smuggle weapons and materiel into the besieged ISIL enclave.^[11]


On 20 February 2017, the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army took advantage of the rebel's redirection of personnel for an offensive in Daraa city and launched their large-scale offensive which resulted in them capturing Tasil, as well as four other towns and villages and a hill. The rebels managed to recapture only two towns.^[12][13]


The offensive started a few hours after midnight on 19 February, when the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army hacked into FSA communications and, posing as FSA commanders, announced that rebel lines had been breached in three towns, including Tasil. They told rebel units to retreat because ISIL had already captured the villages. At the same time, ISIL sympathisers in rebel-held territory took control of the public address systems on village mosques and announced that ISIL was in control, while members of ISIL sleeper cells, which didn't number more than 10 per each village, attacked the rebels from behind and created the impression that the breach of rebel lines had indeed taken place. This led to the withdrawal of most rebel forces. The hill that was captured, was the strategic hilltop of Tal Al-Jamou that overlooks Tasil. It had 15 rebel posts, each manned by two or three fighters. ISIL forces advanced through the posts, killing rebels who were too slow to flee.^[11]


On 22 February, ISIL forces captured three more areas, including a former Army base.^[1] By this point, since the start of the offensive, 132 people had been killed in the fighting, mostly combatants.^[14][9] The dead included some captured rebels that were beheaded.^[11] Three days later, ISIL seized two more villages.^[15] With this advance, ISIL had almost doubled the size of its territory in the area since the start of the offensive.^[16]


On 27 February, the rebels recaptured two villages and it was initially reported they also retook^[5] the hilltop of Tal Al-Jamou. However, the rebel attack on the ISIL-held hill was repelled^[17] following an ISIL ambush of rebel forces^[10] that left 31 rebel fighters dead.^[18]