MTR officer with direct words about work in Syria

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A soldier of the Russian special forces - on a business trip to Syria and interaction with the Syrian military

How do you assess the ISIS fighters? How have their units changed recently? Have there been new weapons, tactics, modern weapons?

- We had several business trips, and each time the militants changed. So it was not that we arrived and the enemy remained the same. The situation does not stand still. For example, the militants now have a lot of night vision devices. These are binocular devices and Cyclops (a night vision device with two eyepieces combined into one unit - Izvestia). There are also "pipes" - night vision scopes. They are mounted on small arms. The militants also have "tepliks" (thermal imagers. - "Izvestia"). Previously, all this good was not there. For example, we even captured the Belarusian Pulsar night vision devices from the enemy. Quite good and relatively inexpensive products with a Chinese matrix. They also had Pulsars with rangefinder units.

How effectively do militants use night vision devices and thermal imagers?

- So far, the militants are not quite able to use this technique. For example, when they work with night vision scopes, they do not take into account the ballistics of the weapon. A bullet is not a laser beam. She flies along a certain trajectory. To hit, especially at a great distance, it is necessary to make corrections when shooting, make take-offs and take leads. They don't. Therefore, they often do not get it.

The sentries at the posts do not use "night lights" all the time. They will look for a while and put away the instruments. And then they just listen to what is happening around. Therefore, they often cannot detect in time what is happening near the position.

But all the same, in combat work, one has to constantly take into account that the enemy has "hot houses" and "night lights". Especially when you approach the positions of the militants at night. You must behave very carefully, control your movements and closely monitor the sentries.

It is known that ISIS units often use various drones. Have you come across such products?

- Mostly they make them with their own hands. They buy engines, control systems and other parts on the Internet. Quadrocopters are also used. Drones and quadcopters work very efficiently.

For example, we have seen this option. "Fantik" (quadrocopter of the Phantom series - "Izvestia") with a fixed hook. An improvised explosive device (IED) is suspended from the hook. The IED has a remote firing unit and legs. The camouflage device is pasted over with grass. "Fantik" secretly brings it and puts it in the grass next to the road or in a trench. And the militants are watching and when someone approaches or a car passes by, they remotely detonate the charge. Its power is enough to break a truck wheel.

We've seen quadcopters with homemade bombs. Small tubes, strikers are made of nails, stabilizers are made of pre-cut bags. There is a fraction in the charge. The quadcopter is almost inaudible. He flies up and drops the bomb. Within a radius of 5 m, you can get serious shrapnel wounds. At the same time, the militants understand the importance of drones. And they are trying to shoot down ours and the Syrian. They shot down a quadrocopter near one of our units. Apparently, they got him from the SVD.

Can you tell us about your combat work?

- We tried to hit the enemy in the weakest places, where he does not expect us, and inflict maximum defeat. Once we went decently from the line of contact to the rear of the militants. And at night they raided their positions.

The terrain in the area where we worked is a "Martian" landscape. There are cracks in the ground and everywhere stones are collected in heaps and shafts. Moreover, each shaft is 2–3 m high and from 500 m to 1 km long. The twists and turns make it difficult to navigate the terrain at night. At the same time, finding an opponent is not easy. Heated stones are very similar to the head or other parts of the human body.

There was a building in the depths of the enemy's defenses. At one time, the militants blew it up, and it settled. But if you climb onto its roof, or rather, what is left of it, then a good view of the enemy's position opens up. But to get to the building, you had to cross the road. And it is located on a one and a half meter embankment, and when you overcome it, you become very noticeable. And a little further, at the crossroads, the militants have a dugout with a large-caliber machine gun. Of course, I had to sweat. We started tracking the enemy. They waited for the militants to lose their vigilance. Then they quickly overcame this line. We took positions, got ready and started to work.

The militants clearly did not expect that someone would be so daring to attack them at night and so intensively exterminate them. We then "worked" for several dozen people. At first, the enemy was in shock. They did not understand what was happening and where they were shooting from. But then their reserves were pulled up. The enemy regrouped, and they began to shoot at the "house" from all barrels, comparing our shelter to the ground. Apparently, the enemy realized that it was most convenient to work from the “home”. Plus, we noticed they had observation devices. The militants even tried to make a small detour and began to "water" at us from the flank with a machine gun. There were also quite daring ones. Several militants went ahead. They hid behind stones. They managed to overcome about 100 m. True, we laid them all down. They began to move away from the "home". But the machine gun from the flank did not allow them to cross the road. And you can't wait on the spot. Will be covered with mortar fire. I had to retreat along the road. When the enemy changed magazines in machine guns and reloaded machine guns, we overcame the ill-fated road with a sharp rush. After that, a relatively safe departure was already provided for us.

A few days later, we decided to plan an operation in a different area along the same lines. First, we studied the area, carefully worked out all the issues of the operation, and took into account the previous experience.

But this time they decided to take more powerful fire weapons - hand grenade launchers. We also had assault rifles, sniper rifles and machine guns.

It was relatively close to the place. But we walked very carefully. Therefore, the approach took us several hours. Someone's abandoned positions were on the way. Moreover, there were still tents, mattresses. I had to stop and examine them. There could be mines. There was a lot of rubbish, cans and cartridge zinc in the grass. Even if you just hook it, there will be a lot of noise.

We came to the object quite late. Dawn was about to begin. Therefore, I had to act quickly and boldly. They decomposed, observed the positions of the militants, assessed their number, weapons, and the nature of their actions. Well, we started to work.

One building and approaches to it became the subject of our interest. As we understood, this is a kind of guardhouse. There the militants rested, took food and prepared to go to take over the post. This is exactly what we needed. A large crowd of an enemy who thinks he is safe and does not expect an attack. They recorded the moment when a large number of militants had accumulated, apparently for instructions.

Then everything developed rapidly. Worked out of grenade launchers. The building blows up, the militants are in panic. Our shooters finish off with accurate shots those who were thrown back by the explosion and were beginning to come to their senses. Then, according to radio interception, we were told that we had covered four important commanders and several dozen militants.

True, the shots from the grenade launchers immediately unmasked our positions and the militants again climbed out of all the cracks, like the last time. The enemy had hidden routes of communication, along which their machine gunners advanced towards us. They turned around and opened fairly accurate fire. The bullets landed so close that the body could feel their tracks. The bursts were very close.

They began to retreat in an orderly manner, covering each other under enemy fire. The first covers, and the second moves, takes a position, then the first is pulled up to it, etc. The militants again behaved very insolently. Plus, they were well-versed in the terrain. We have already decently moved away from the battlefield. Suddenly a fighter jumps out from the flank and starts shooting. I managed to release almost the entire store in our direction. And I was running across at that time. But the partner worked well. All I heard was the sound of bang bang shots. A clear "two" right in the center of the "carcass".

If we had been a little late, then the impudent militant would have come out to our rear. The operation was very successful. We made a rustle there decently.

How did you interact with the Syrian military?

- We need to establish interaction with them and in every possible way involve them in the implementation of tasks. If we go on a mission, we collect Syrian commanders from all over the front. Often it is only at such meetings that they get to know each other. We help them to establish interaction with each other. We explain where, how and where we will work from, we take their personnel with us. Be sure to instruct them to let us return from the battle and not to defeat us with their fire. We try to leave our representative for coordination. Syrian soldiers are different. There are fighting ones. And it happens that under fire you say to him "run", but he cannot move from his place - his legs have become wadded. And sometimes they start crying. On the one hand, you can understand them. We're on a business trip here. They won back - and home. And they have been fighting here for six years.