From Moon of Alabama:

The Syrian army has deployed new air defenses in north-west Syrian that can cover Afrin canton which is under Turkish attack…

The Kurds fighting the Turkish supported religious-extremists have some support from the Syrian government. Their wounded are transported to government hospitals. The government controlled corridor between the Kurdish held areas in eastern Syria and in Afrin is open for Kurdish resupplies…

What the operation does, and is probable intended to do, is to demonstrate to its NATO partner in Washington that it is indeed aligning with Kurdish YPG/PKK forces that are, from a Turkish perspective, outright terrorists. The attack on Afrin is designed to split the U.S. alliance with the YPG/PKK. (That may well be the reason why it has tacit Russian support.) If it succeeds in doing that it will make a further U.S. occupation of north-east Syria, which is in alliance with the Kurds, extremely difficult…

Many of the thousands of ISIS fighters the U.S. let intentionally escape from Raqqa and who from there traveled east are still at large…

One well founded speculation is that the U.S. directs those ISIS fighters to attack the Syrian forces in the border city Abu Kamal just south of the Euphrates. The intend is to disrupt the road that connects Syria and Iraq and thus Beirut and Tehran.

From the comments:

It was so interesting to watch Russia join with Syria to stop Turkey’s advance to Aleppo a few days ago. Practically the next day Turkey’s allies shot down a Russian jet…

Turkey’s assault on Afrin made SAA assault on Idlib much easier…

From the POV of many Syrians, the Turks are just as bad as the Zionists, perhaps even worse since the enmity is more longstanding…

I think the use of ManPads signify a profound change in the conflict. Until now these weapons have largely been withheld from all insurgent forces…

ManPads emerging on the battlefields is really, really bad news…

Most nations that have them in their inventories guard them rather strictly, because of the threat to civil aviation…

Turkey has been a primary backer of the FSA/ISIL/Muslim Brotherhood “rebels” since the very start of this “regime change” operation. It kept its border open for the inflow of Jihadists/mercenaries and weapons and the outflow of oil, entire factories disassembled and shipped to Turkey, valuable ancient artifacts and apparently slaves…

The supply of “rebels” with manpads is a turning point to the worse. However it is also an indirect admission from the invaders that business as usual won’t work…

Turkey is not a country that will cower, get scared, kneel or beg through the PKK, Daesh or another terrorist organization that they [the US/Israel Zionists] armed…

Turkey doesn’t know how to back down – this is not a feature of the Turkish mind…

Sochi was a success. The congress unanimously declared that all of Syria should be recovered – this includes Golan of course. Those who didn’t attend were terrorists and groups who have chosen the losing side – their loss…

by Thierry Meyssan
“While the Congress for a Syrian National Dialogue has not solved the conflict, it has swept away the minor groups who were pretending to represent the Syrian People for the benefit of the Western powers.”..

Turkey and the US are creating “safe zones” in Syria. https://journal-neo.org/2018/02/03/turkey-establishing-long-sought-us-safe-haven-in-northern-syria/…

The ISIS forces near the Iraqi border need to be kept alive as an excuse for the US to remain in Syria…

What made Manpads so effective in Afghanistan is the very mountainous nature of the country.

From Moon of Alabama, citing Reuters:

More than 100 fighters aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were killed overnight when U.S. coalition and coalition-backed local forces repelled their attack in eastern Syria, a U.S. official said on Thursday.The heavy death toll underscored the large size of the attack, which the U.S. official said included about 500 opposing forces, backed by artillery, tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems and mortars.

From MOA:

Local deals were made between the Syrian government side and locals Arabs holding the oil fields. The U.S. told the SDF to move out of the way. When the government aligned groups started to take over the field, as presumably agreed upon, the U.S. bombed them.

From the comments:

If the “more than 100 fighters aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad” included Iranian militia, and they most likely did, then there probably will be payback, which Iran usually does.

Recently from Iran: “My message to the US military command: when the battle against ISIS will end, no American soldier will be tolerated in Syria. I advise you to leave by your own will or you will be forced to it,” said Soleimani to a Russian officer…

Trump needs to understand that politicians should run the military and not the other way round…

It’s not Russia, China or even Iran that really threatens the United States, it the ignorance, arrogance and stupidity of its political and military leadership…

https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/961617576848740352
Lucas Tomlinson @LucasFoxNews
U.S. counter-attack in Syria included Air Force AC-130 gunships, F-15s, F-22s, Army Apache helicopter gunships and Marine Corps artillery killing 100 Russian and Assad-backed fighters in 3-hour battle beginning around midnight last night.
—
Russian MoD says the Syrian forces were fighting with ISIS and defended and where then attacked by the U.S…

ISIS and SDF are now interchangeable. The formerly/currently ISIS groups can now attack Syrian forces as ISIS and be defended by the US as SDF…

https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/961557034473803781
Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai 5h
#Syria: The death toll, according to sources in Syria, is around 61 (not 100) Syrian killed by Trump Air force. The occupation force air bombed also static #SAA and national forces positions around Deir-ezzour and not only moving forces…

According to on-site accounts announced via Twitter, and this is just one selection, proves the Outlaw US Empire’s description of events is one massive Fish Tale.