Syria Update: Splitting Jobar and Zamalka (Part 5)

Syria Update: Splitting Jobar and Zamalka (Part 5)



It is another day of the operation aimed at separating the enemy defense lines of the al -Nusra Front terrorists in Jobar from their allied group of militants positioned in Zamalka. Today, the main battle area has become the scene of predominantly positional fighting on both sides. The main combat mission of the SAA troops has remained their closing with the enemy positions by advancing through the surrounding residential sector and subsequently pushing the terrorists away from their current defense area strategic positions.



- “We are in Jobar right now – one of the neighborhoods of Eastern Gouta – where groups of militants have captured houses of civilians. They had plundered them and turned them into one fortified defense area to fight against SAA. However, soldiers have managed to free these houses and inflict heavy losses to the militants. A large number of landmines has been deactivated here. We also have managed to take under control the whole area between the highway and the Southern Beltway. We – the soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army – solemnly vow to God and our Motherland to carry on with the destruction of the enemies until our complete victory”.



The militants seem to be fully aware that after losing these strategic high-rise buildings the Jobar group will be cut off from arms supplies and reinforcements. They will also lose their control over the Southern Beltway; and the underground tunnel – connecting Jobar with Zamalka – will be destroyed.

Today, we are visiting the forward positions in the residential sector. From a bird's eye view, the main battle area does not seem to be large. However, you get a different perspective on the ground.

Scurrying across the open spaces controlled by the enemy snipers, we finally step into the labyrinth of the houses of the private residential sector. Here, the battle was going on at an extremely close combat range. Its front line was not measured in hundreds of meters but in mere steps of every single living room, kitchen, and staircase. Every single step you could be hit in a landmine. You could be shot at from any direction even from under your feet through the floor, as not all underground tunnels were known by then.

We have made our first stop of this tour. The militants are less than ten meters away from us, now. We move on. One wrong step and we can get into a no man’s land. There you can only take chances – of either getting a bullet or being captured alive. It is hard to say which is nicer, most probably it is the bullet.



- “The situation is good here. The distance to the militants is seven meters. We do everything possible to win. With God’s help, we will. Movement is very restricted here, because all the wall partitions have been breached and they provide no cover. We brought sandbags in here and secured our positions. There militants are in front of us in three different locations: in the basement, behind the front wall of the building, and a little further to the right. It was hard at first, so we secured our position at this spot so that we would not have to move forward head-to-head. With the help of these guys – the Syrian Army soldiers – we will kill all the enemies of our Motherland. The victory will be Syria’s”.



Behind those sandbags, someone is watching us, too. This time, it is the militants. If we uncover ourselves, the fighting will ensue. We have closed with the right flank high-rise building. Less than ten meters away from us, the militants’ positions are there.



- “We are at a forward counter-sniper position. The militant snipers are literally ten meters away from us. The SAA soldiers keep visual contact with them. Seek them out. And take them out. Very close to us, there is a high-rise building from which a tank was shot at and the tank’s driver was killed”.



Those are the enemy firing points destroyed earlier. They can be clearly seen from this spot from which SAA soldiers had communicated their coordinates to the tanks and one of the tanks subsequently destroyed the terrorists' positions with fire.

That is the spot over there from which the militants used to control with fire the immediate area in front of the high-rise buildings.

Now, we are moving deep into the private residential sector.
This alley is under constant sniper fire and we decided that we could not deny ourselves a pleasure to tease the terrorist snipers with our camera.

The days are numbered before the decisive storming of these high-rise buildings begins.






Contributors: Vasily Pavlov, Andrey Filatov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov.


ANNA-News. Damascus.