Kuweires offensive

Kuweires offensive
	Part of the Battle of Aleppo and the Syrian Civil War
	; Map of the Southern Aleppo offensive to the west, and the Kuweires offensive to the east, from September to late October 2015
Date	14 September – 16 November 2015; (2 months and 2 days)
Location	Aleppo, Syria
Result	Syrian government victory Syrian Army lifts the airbase siege on 10 November; Syrian Army reaches the Aleppo–Raqqa Highway; Syrian Army captured close to 50 villages during their offensive;
Belligerents
Syrian Arab Republic Syrian Armed Forces; National Defence Forces; Iran IRGC Quds Force; IRGC Ground Forces; ; Hezbollah; Ba'ath Brigades; Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Air strikes:; Russia Aerospace Forces;	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Commanders and leaders
Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani; (Chief strategist); Maj. Gen. Hossein Hamadani †; (Deputy commander); Maj. Gen. Munzer Zammam; (Kuweires Airport chief commander); Gen. Hasham Mohamed Younis; (Kuweires Airport sub-commander); Col. Suheil al-Hassan; (Tiger Forces commander); Col. Muhammad Shahen; (Cheetah Forces commander); Col. Lu'ayy Sleitan; (Cheetah Forces commander); Akram al Kaabi; (Leader of al-Nujaba) Aleksandr Dvornikov; (Commander of Russian Forces) Viktor Bondarev; (Commander of Russian Aerospace Forces)	Umar Al-Absi; (ISIL chief commander of Aleppo); Abu Mu'awiya Al-Halabi; (ISIL senior commander)
Units involved
Syrian Army: Tiger Forces Cheetah Forces Cheetah Forces Team 6; ; ; Qalamoun Shield Forces; Syrian Air Force; Aerospace Forces Sukhoi Su-25SMs; Naval Infantry advisors 810th Naval Infantry Brigade;	Military of ISIL
Strength
314 (Kuweires Airport, out of original 1,000–1,100); ~4,500 (reinforcements)	Unknown
Casualties and losses
78 killed, 200+ wounded	80+ killed

On 14 September 2015, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) – in cooperation with the National Defence Forces (NDF) and the Al-Ba'ath Battalion – launched a fresh offensive inside the Aleppo Governorate's southeastern countryside in order to lift the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham's (ISIS) two-year-long siege of the isolated Kuweires Military Airbase. This offensive was later complemented by another effort starting mid-October further south, which would be aimed at cementing government control over the main logistical route to Aleppo from central Syria.

The main objective of the offensive was to lift the siege on the Kuweires Military Airport, and relieve the hundreds of soldiers locked into the Kuweires pocket for almost three years, as well as to give significant depth to the main line of communication to the Syrian and allied forces in the province from the south. Also there is a possible long-term goal of cutting the Aleppo–Raqqah highway and thereby bisecting ISIL in Syria.

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