Syria Update: Battle for Jobar School Compound

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Syria Update: Battle for Jobar School Compound.

A Duel between Tank and Grenade Launcher-Toting Militant (Part 2)

(Transcreation)




This is the continued story of a battle for a school compound in Jobar area of Damascus province in Syria between the Syrian army troops, supported by armor, and the militants, who had occupied the office blocks and the nearby residential buildings for quite a while.

After the Syrian tanks had killed a terrorist with an RPG grenade launcher inside one of the buildings and destroyed a number of other firing points, the militants’ fire density still did not decrease. The office blocks of this school compound were connected to the nearby three- and four-storied buildings by underground passageways. The militants would occasionally hide themselves in those tunnels or temporarily retreat inside the buildings. All the ground structures around there had been turned into one strongpoint with heavily fortified defense area positions.

Syrian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles kept looking out for possible movement inside the buildings. Infantry fighting vehicles engaged every spotted target. The tanks were swapping their positions. One tank – with our friend Hussein in it – moved out to cover the troops. He had a sudden idea to try to approach the enemy positions’ flank and to strike upon the presumed location of a tunnel entrance nearby one of the residential buildings.

After commanding officer had approved his initiative, Hussein – along with his crewmembers –steered their battle tank around the school compound in order to strike the militants’ positions from the flank, where several residential buildings were adjacent to the office blocks of the school compound. Three more tanks joined them to support their initiative shortly.

The tank then would fire and immediately roll back for cover. Straight ahead of the firing positions of the tanks, as well as to the left of them, there were militants’ positions, situated about 50 meters away from the tanks.

All those buildings were linked together into one fortified defense area. Like anywhere in Jobar neighborhood, that area had many underground passageways, interconnecting the basements of the buildings there.

Having finished engaging their targets, the tanks returned to their original positions. Meanwhile, Syrian infantrymen were entering to secure the office block Two. In this particular situation, the most difficult thing for the Syrian soldiers was to traverse the first five meters of advancing into the building. If at least one terrorist sniper had been overlooked before the beginning of this operation, someone of them would have been bound to be hit.

A militant observer had been seen on the local water tower. Shortly afterward, a fire strike followed and the terrorists became one spotter less.

Syrian army units, which had already taken the office block One, were engaging the militants there and simultaneously providing cover to the advancing troops. The dust rising from behind the office block could be seen, attesting to the firepower density.

The crewmembers of the fighting infantry vehicles had found how to solve the problem of the poor visibility at the end of the corridor that was linking the two school buildings. In order to disrupt the militants’ defense positions and block their communications routes, as well as to provide armor cover to the infantrymen, who were at that moment securing other buildings behind it, the fighting infantry vehicle storms inside the building and enters the corridor thus taking its perimeter under control.

SAA troops had secured and taken under control three office blocks inside this school compound. This operation has led to the militants’ defense positions having been separated into several isolated segments. Ammunition supply routes to the enclosed terrorist group have been disrupted. Militant reinforcements now start taking losses even as they approach this defense area. This new situation has deprived militants’ area defense positions in Jobar of their previous status of a strongpoint, designed to transition their area defense to an offensive against the central areas of Damascus.





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



ANNA-News Agency, Damascus.