It states in the article... they are going to ANOTHER rebel held city!
this isn’t about “getting them out in the open” this is about letting them escape and to terrorism ANOTHER city which will have to also be taken back, block by block.. at which time just as they are about to win... they will let them leave and go back to the original city so they can start over.
“this isn’t about “getting them out in the open” this is about letting them escape”
That is essentially true.
They will get them out of the big city though (Aleppo is the biggest city in Syria). When they let the jihadis retreat, they will lose control over where they might go.
My point is that the Syrian Arab Army is punched out, and must conserve its forces. They have taken massive casualties. They are a shell of what they were before the war. If they could easily manage a costly defeat in detail (killing the enemy to their last man) in a dense urban environment, neither the Syrian Regime, nor their Russian allies, nor their Iranian allies would be shy about doing so.
The Syrian Regime needs to conserve its combat power to consolidate and protect their gains against potential counter-attack - the Turkish Army itself is inside Syria, close to the North-East Suburbs of Aleppo (Outside al Bab).
ISIS is not far away from Aleppo either. Their surprise recapture of Palmyra in the last week demonstrated how vulnerable the Regime’s gains still are. ISIS overran one of the Russians most important airbases (T4) in that offensive.
This has been a long struggle (about as long as WWII), which has produced the biggest refugee crisis since WWII. It has been a real endurance contest for survival.
Things are likely to shift big time in Syria, after the Trump Administration comes in.