Syria Update: Al-Qabun Frontline

Syria Update: Al-Qabun Frontline

November 15, 2013

Today, we have arrived in al-Qabun, a municipality and a neighborhood of Damascus. It is located to the southeast of Barzah neighborhood, where Syrian army special cleanup operation is going on that was covered in the previous report “Barzah Cleanup Operation”.

Syrian army troops have recaptured part of al-Qabun from the militants. It is predominantly face-to-face combats here with the warring parties fighting at extremely close combat range of 5 to 100 meters.

Movement had been spotted in one of the militant-held buildings and the militants there were immediately fired upon.

The densely-built urban area stretching far and wide in front of the building - that we used as our observation post - is said to be entirely in the militants' hands at this moment. 

“We are at the frontline positions of the Syrian army troops in al-Qabun. From here, the distance to the militants is 20 to 25 meters. In the building across from here, we can see the window curtains that the militants had hung up to conceal their own movement inside”.

We moved on. Next, this here is a secret firing position of the Syrian army. Once the Syrian army soldiers spotted militant movement outside, the army commanding officers realized that the militants were reconnoitering the area. To keep their works concealed from the militants, the Syrian army troops organized additional firing point right inside the wooden closet, blocking the window of one of the apartments. When the militants had decided to storm this building, the fire opened from this position drove them back.

The nearby school building has been taken by the militants. All the adjacent buildings around it are said to be joined together into one network and it would take a lot of effort on the part of the Syrian army to secure this neighborhood with minimum losses to the storming troops.

The multistoried building in the distance was said to be the Water Resources Ministry. It had been the target of the militants, trying to capture it, for more than a year. When the Syrian army troops were advancing here, the militants retreated inside the school building.

There are numerous bodies of dead militants, scattered in what has now become a no man’s land. The fast advancing Syrian army troops had forced the militants to abandon their dead.

We moved on, taking another direction alongside the frontline. In one of the rooms, the gaping hole in the partially collapsed ceiling was said to have been the result of a militant mortar. The militants’ positions were just across the alley now, mere five meters away from the sandbags outlining the defenses of the Syrian army troops.

Syrian army officer: “There, five meters away from us, in that basement, there are militants present, right now”.

Being fully aware that the enemy is close, the Syrian soldiers spend hours in wait, keeping under constant control their respective visual sectors.    

Among the ruins of concrete, the militants were said to be present everywhere. Here and there, there could be seen carpets, strung out to conceal the militants’ movement.

Afterwards, we were invited to take a look at the militants’ food supplies. The produce originated from Qatar and Turkey. Vacuum-packed bread can be stored for as long as one year. It was produced in Turkey. Canned foods come from Qatar.

As we moved on in another direction, we were told that everything we could see around us had been previously recaptured from the militants through the enormous combat efforts of the Syrian army assault troops.   

We have been shown a place where Syrian army commanding officers once decided to plant several mines on the ground floor of the building, after they had learned of the imminent attack by the militants. The mines were remotely detonated, after the militant activity had become apparent. The explosion destroyed the room’s partitions, depriving the militants of cover. The Syrian army soldiers killed a large group of militants then by intensive fire.

We have also been shown some of the earthworks equipment that had been used by the militants to make barricades and tunnels. In the basement of an unfinished building, the militants had started digging a tunnel but had not have enough time to finish their work. They also used that basement to rig cars with bombs for their subsequent acts of terror. The militants took great efforts to conceal the bombs by hiding them under the car seats’ upholstery and inside the working compartments. To disarm such a car bomb, one would have to disassemble the parts of the car. Actually, it is anybody’s guess how many lives had been saved by capturing this one car bomb.

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

ANNA-News. Damascus.