Tank Attack in Jobar (Part 2)

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Syria Update: Tank Attack (Part 2)


This is Jobar town, a suburb in the east of the city of Damascus. As it was reported in the previous first part of this combat fighting episode, shortly after the preemptive artillery strike by the Syrian army, Syrian battle tanks moved in and began engaging their respective targets – Al-Nusra Front terrorists, who occupied this historical neighborhood in the outskirts of Damascus – from two different directions. In this alley, the entrenched militants were effectively using underground tunnels for covert movement to get into the buildings on the right side of the street, as a network of well-equipped underground passageways connected all the ground structures on both sides of the alleyway. Constant reinforcements and ammunition supplies were provided via those underground passageways, thus significantly bolstering the terrorists' defense efforts in this area.

After a short period, the Syrian infantrymen had a number of wounded soldiers. At this moment, the battle tanks were supposed to assist the evacuation of the wounded by providing cover to their troops as the infantrymen were taking their wounded comrades from inside the buildings and to the Rescue-Evacuation Vehicle.

The Rescue-Evacuation Vehicle – a BMP-2 Infantry Combat Vehicle converted into an armored evacuation ambulance vehicle – had already arrived and was waiting for the injured. It was important not to let the militant fire disrupt the rescue mission in progress.


The infantrymen were constantly being fired upon from one of the buildings on the right side of the street. Every time the Syrian battle tanks moved into their firing positions, the militants would step back deeper into the structures or hide themselves in the basements. But as soon as the tanks would move back out of the battle area, the militants always resumed their firing upon the infantrymen, who were supposed to be coming along with their wounded out of the building on the opposite side of the alley.


One after another, mortar bombs – launched by the terrorists from the depth of the Jobar neighborhood – were hitting the buildings around on both sides of the alleyway. The tanks finished their firing upon the enemy positions and started moving back, using their own armor and smoke screening to cover the evacuees.


Evacuation of the wounded is prioritized on the battlefield. Many times, we have been witnesses to how wounded Syrian soldiers were receiving their emergency medical treatment within five or ten minutes after having being wounded. Twenty minutes is usually how long it takes to get a wounded soldier to emergency operating room.


Part of the building – which had posed so much problems to the Syrian infantrymen and subsequently had been pounded upon by the tanks – collapsed. Now, nobody would be bothering out of that rubble any more.


Since the building had partially collapsed, it was probable that the militants there have sustained certain losses. As soon as terrorist movement had been spotted behind a burnt-out tank nearby the collapsing building, one of the battle tanks immediately engaged the location.


The voice of a Syrian army commander: “To the right, behind the tank, that is the building. Further to the right! That is it! Faster! Shoot! Fire!”


Despite numerous fire strikes by the Syrian tanks, the militants disregarded their losses and were desperately trying to hold on to their defense positions. The reason was this defense area was very important to the terrorists. They were only 500 meters away from the downtown area of Damascus and mere three kilometers away from the Russian Embassy. In order to break through, 17000 militants had been summoned up, but their plans were ruined. Even so, their field leaders were sending in more and more fighters to be slaughtered.


A terrorist sniper was shooting from deep inside one of the buildings trying to hit the tank’s optical devices. The tank gunner did not take much of his time to return fire.


The Syrian army finally decided to relocate its main efforts to splitting terrorist defenses in Jobar from their defense lines in Zamalka, in order to stop ammo supplies and constant reinforcements to the terrorists in this area. Until then, it would be strictly positional fighting here.




Contributors: Marat Musin, Vasiliy Pavlov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov, Andrey Filatov.

ANNA-News Agency, Damascus.