French Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier, who has been in charge of French artillery supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria claims that the US-led coalition fighting in the Battle of Hajin (near Syria’s border with Iraq) allow terrorists to kill and destroy.
In the Battle of Hajin, there were approximately 2.000 armed mercenaries, mainly foreigners, located in a thirty kilometer by 10 kilometer stretch along the Euphrates River in Syrian Arab-Kurdish territory.
The area where military action took place is a V-shaped wedge of land located between the Euphrates River on the west and the Iraqi-Syrian border to the east.
There are several thousand civilians present in the northern part of the Hajin pocket located in a mainly rural area.
The Syrian army and Iraqi militias control the West Bank of the Euphrates River and the area to the north of the city of Al-Qaim (in Iraq), while the southern border is controlled by the Katiba Hezbollah, a small relatively well equipped Iran-affiliated militia.
The ground war is fought using a combination of saturation with explosive weapons and precision guided ammunition that is operational in all weather conditions.
Liberation forces responded using rockets and mortars at rates of up to 100 per day, while the coalition forces had supremacy in the air battle, using surveillance and intelligence to guide the use of its aerial bombardment strategy.
Over a six month period, several thousand bombs were dropped over a few dozen square kilometers, resulting in the total destruction of the local infrastructure.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces were delegated the responsibility of conducting ground operations, resulting in a loss of control of how the battle was fought.
This led to higher levels of infrastructure destruction including hospitals, mosques, schools and residential area and a much higher human toll.
Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the US-led bombing campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of scores of civilians over the past six months.
To date, some 700 civilians, over 250 of whom were children, have been killed during the genocide, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Thousands of civilians have fled the area, with the Al-Houl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria currently hosting over 39,000 people, mainly women and children.
Colonel Legrier’s public commentary and criticism of the events that took place during the Battle of Hajin resulted in his paper being removed from the on-line version of the Revue Defense Nationale and potential punishment from embarrassed French authorities who were about to announce the defeat of the ISIS.
Russia Insider / ABC Flash Point WW III News 2019.
Blatant defeat of Western diplomacy?