Syria Update: Destroying Terrorist Underground Passage

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Syria Update: Destroying Terrorist Underground Passage

We have visited the town of Dariya near the capital city of Damascus today. Syrian army has destroyed another underground tunnel, dug out by the militants here. We have followed the path along which the terrorists had withdrawn from their previous defense positions.

All the way through this residential area, we have witnessed the scenes of war devastation everywhere around us, as we were walking through somebody’s bedrooms, children rooms, and living rooms. Home gardens, that must have taken years to grow, were dying without husbandry.

Finally, we reached the spot where the militants had dug out a tunnel, leading towards the nearby highway. According to our guide, a Syrian army officer, Syrian soldiers had initially tried to ambush the terrorists at the entrance of this underground passageway on this side and bring them into custody. Several days had been spent in wait, but the militants were too careful to come out. Then, the Syrian soldiers brought in a bulldozer and started plowing the tunnel up in order to close its entrance. At that moment, the militants opened frantic fire upon them, trying to disrupt their works. They fired more than 30 mortars at the Syrian army troops – who had been busy closing the tunnel – but it did not help the terrorists.

According to the Syrian army officer, the tunnel had a strategic significance to the militants. This area was swarming with terrorists, many of whom had been killed. They intended to establish a munitions supply through here and if needs be use this part of the underground passage as their escape route.

The passageway was 300 meters long, 10 meters deep, and one meter wide and its ceiling was 1.5 meters high. It was equipped with electricity lights, ventilation, storage rooms, and earthworks equipment.

Every twenty meters of the tunnel’s length, the terrorists inside the tunnel made a shaft up to the surface in order to check out their location, using a camera to look around. Finally, once when the militants were retracting their camera back into the tunnel, the Syrian troops dropped a bomb in there. The terrorists’ cries underground had been heard for a long time, afterwards. Shortly after that, the soldiers dug the tunnel’s entrance open again and subsequently went in and secured the whole of the underground passageway.

After securing the tunnel, the Syrian army detonated it. According to the officer, that was not the first such tunnel around there and surely, it was not the last one.

One of the walls inside a nearby dwelling house, previously used by the militants as their defense structure, was interspersed with handwritings by various terrorists, who probably wanted to remain remembered in this place and turned it into some sorts of a hall of fame of theirs. By looking at those scribbles, one could tell that those militants came from such places as Homs, Kallas, and Al-Sham in Syria, as well as from various places in Libya, Lebanon, Tunis, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, belonging to various militant groups, ranging from “Battalions of the grandchildren of Muhammad” to “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham”.

A little further, not far from this improvised front line, there were the militants sitting somewhere over there. It was about a 200-meter distance to the militants’ positions from here. Both sides at that moment were fighting by using their sniper power only.

The tighter was the grip around them, the more often the militants had made attempts to break through moving in this direction. They would set fire to one place and make a run at another, according to the officer. The terrorists are said to be especially proficient at using sniper rifles manufactured in the US, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The Syrian Army officer said: “We are sure that our blood we shed is not for nothing. The victory will be ours. We get our strength from our mothers and from our people. The strength of the Army comes from the strength of the people. We make sure to follow all directions of our leadership and we will be true to our oaths. Motherland! Honor! Loyalty!



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


ANNA-News, Damascus.