Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

13:30:08
16/10/2016

Riafan.ru

Due to the temporary cessation of the active offensive of governmental forces in the Islamist-controlled Eastern Aleppo, military operations were transformed into periodic clashes, some of which can be definitely characterized as heavy.

The majority of positional battles are accompanied by regular attempts of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and allies to carry out reconnaissance for the purpose of “analysing” the fighting capacity of the opponent. Unfortunately, an approximate calculation on the number of fighters on a majority of sectors of the front can’t be made. Official sources at the SAA command room are limited to the approximate data of about 2000-3000 fighters.

For the last two days the Palestinian voluntary brigade “Liwa al-Quds”, together with units of the Republican Guard attacked the positions of terrorists between the Jandoul junction and Tal al-Asfar.

The correspondent of the Federal News Agency (FNA) witnessed one of the aforementioned attacks. Being one of the most capable voluntary divisions, the “Liwa al-Quds” brigade, using heavy arms against the enemy, forcing the “Jabhat Fateh al-Sham” terrorists to leave their previously occupied positions near the Tal al-Asfar hill, and to abandon this strategically important area of defense.

The offensive planned long before was complicated by two factors:

• several machine-gun posts of the opponent are directly on the hill-top;
• the area, which is well viewed from the top, represents a right angle-shaped wasteland.

The attack can’t be organized in another way than a quick rush at 300-400 meters with artillery support and preliminary bombing of positions of Islamists from the air.

The militants, who most likely decided to limit their “chores” to attacking the positions of Palestinian volunteers, lost sight of two units that approached very closely to their positions and started to adjust the fire of MLRS and tanks, which were given to the brigade to strengthen them.

Already during the first minutes of the battle the commander of one of the units calculated the location of the machine-gun post and immediately suppressed it with tank fire and an armed pickup truck with a DShK mounted on it.

After 10-12 minutes, due to careless movements along the front line, the armed pickup truck of the terrorists, attempting to work on the right flank of the defense of guardsmen, revealed itself.

Rather unexpectedly the pickup truck was destroyed by an aimed shot from the tank that wasn’t expected even by the tankmen. The well-aimed hit served as a signal for militants to retreat in a southwest direction.

The decreased activity of terrorists was seen with the naked eye. However, the reason for the decline in activity may not be related to the reduction of fighting capacity, but instead on preparations for a large-scale operation for an exit from encirclement and the accompanying unwillingness to be involved in long positional battles.

By the way, this fight was won, and the reasons of a local victory are already unimportant.

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