Islamists Ready for Mediterranean Battle
By Robert Fisk
November 04, 2014
SYRIA’s special forces are strung out across a pinnacle of hills just north-east of Lattakia, on one of Syria’s most dangerous frontlines, under daily missile attack from reinforced rebel forces now supported by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (Isis).
The officers, all paratroopers, speak of new tactics and upgraded weapons used against them since Isis seized the Iraqi city of Mosul — and some of the radio traffic they listen to from their enemy is in the Chechen or Georgian languages.
Intelligence reports speak of a unification of rebel factions calling themselves the “Legion of the Coast”.
This is seen as a clear sign that the Isis-inspired rebels — including supporters of the group themselves — intend to strike westwards towards the Mediterranean, hardly 15km away. It’s a fair bet that a big battle is shaping up in these pine-covered mountains.
The soldiers themselves talk of the thermal heat-seeking missiles fired at them with detailed knowledge, and agree that the mixture of Islamist groups above and to the east of them are carrying out daily probing attacks to test their defences.
Intriguingly, their surveillance patrols are returning at dawn to report the sound of unidentified night-time aircraft flying into Syrian airspace from Turkey and then east, deep into Syria.
This began around 20 days ago. They do not know if the machines — drones or aircraft — are American and they have heard no air strikes day or night. But their officers talk of the new TOW anti-armour weapons that have appeared in rebel hands.
One officer showed me an Islamist website videotape of rebels firing a heat- seeking rocket at his own encampment just to the north of here at Qastel Ma’af.
The missile can be seen exploding but disintegrated against concrete revetments around a tank.
But when a corporal dragged missile parts into a room in this Syrian hill-top fortress, it contained some fascinating evidence of the rebel armoury. Most missiles fragment into thousands of pieces on detonation, but just over a month ago — on Sept 26 — a guided missile exploded deep beneath sand and earth and the fragments clearly show the name of its American arms manufacturer, circuit boards and the coding of the weapon.
Part of the missile identifies the “Eagle-Piche IND (Indiana) Inc.” company as the manufacturer and says, in English, that it is “helium charged”, adding — rather ironically as it turns out — the words: CAUTION — CONTAINS 6400 PSIG He [high explosive], FEDERAL LAW FORBIDS TRANSPORTATION IF REFILLED. PENALTY UP TO $25,000 AND FIVE YEARS IMPRISONMENT (49 USC 1809)
The Syrians do not know how this weapon, which appears to have been made as long ago as 1989, made its way from the US to the hands of their country’s Islamist rebels — but it would not be difficult for the Americans to find out.
Its full computer coding reads: DOT-E7694 NRC6400/11109/M1033 79294 ASSY 39317 MFR 54080
A battery tube from another missile fired on Oct 4 carries an inscription indented in the metal: 132964 Battery thermal MFG DATE 12/90 LOT No [indecipherable numeral], then 912 S/N 005959.
These codes should make it easy for the Americans to identify the purchaser, or receiver, of the weapon. How did the Islamists receive these American weapons? On the international arms market?
Or from “moderate” rebels who received American weapons and then sold them to the highest bidder.
DANGEROUS FORTRESSES: Evidence of just how dangerous these hilltop fortresses are — and they are perched amid countryside that resembles more the hills and valleys of Bosnia — came when a general received a radio call that a suicide bomber was moving towards his positions.
He immediately ordered all armed Syrian outposts to open fire on anyone approaching suspiciously. He had good reason, for seven months ago many of his colleagues were annihilated by a rebel suicide bomber on the neighbouring hilltop of “Position 45” to the north of Qastal Ma’af.
By chance, I visited the very same post a year ago and was introduced to the soldiers there by their commander, Gen Mohamed Maarouf. Last March, the bunkered post, surmounted by a broken communications tower, came under a ferocious siege by Islamist rebels led by Muslim al Shishani, the notorious red-bearded Chechen leader who moves constantly around the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.
Outnumbered, the Syrian soldiers held out for a full week — they were all special forces — when Gen Maarouf called for an armoured personnel carrier to evacuate his wounded.
The armoured vehicle that emerged through the fog, however, was not the one the general had called for. Driven by a suicide bomber, it crashed into the centre of the compound with 15 tons of explosives aboard, detonating with a roar heard all the way to the Mediterranean, killing almost all the soldiers, including Gen Maarouf, and tearing open a crater 10 metres wide and five metres deep.
Within hours, an Islamist video showed a laughing Shishani with other rebel colleagues, boasting of their victory. One officer said to me that “almost all the soldiers you met last November were martyred”.
In the past year, more fighters from the Nusra Front and Jund el Islam have turned up opposite the Syrian frontlines — although “frontline” is perhaps a misleading expression.
In many wooded areas, the area under “control” by Syrian troops and rebels is only notional. In reality, the rebel posts are perhaps two-and-a- half kilometres from Ash Shaqraa, but the two sides are sometimes only 200 metres apart.
Turkmens are used in the battles because of their local knowledge, but the soldiers here have noticed that the “labels and brands” of the various Islamist groups are constantly changing. If Isis is here as an organised structure, they say, it is still very small. But they have noticed the rebels now using armour-piercing missiles for the first time as well as missiles with a range of five kilometres.
Among Arabic accents on the radios are voices from Egypt, Libya, the Gulf, Tunisia and Morocco. Smaller Islamist factions appear to swallow each other “like whales”, one soldier memorably said, adding that it was “only a matter of time before a big faction swallows all the smaller factions”.
He did not use the Arabic word “Daesh” (Isis), but that must surely be what will happen. Some units belong to the “Liwa al Adiyat” — the Brigade of Great Ordeals — but whenever these men fight, units from other factions arrive to support them.
Syrian troops have also observed large numbers of Turkish troops and armour massing along the border to their north and the construction of a new concrete fortress by Turkish forces on top of Al Aqra Mountain. To describe the situation here as “tense” would be to fall victim to an old cliché.
Suffice it to say that after giving me a pair of military binoculars to look into the forest, an officer asked me to return behind a sand revetment to avoid attracting sniper fire.
One of Gen Maarouf’s closest comrades was at Ash Shaqraa and he reminded me of the last conversation I had with his former commander. “He told you, Mr Robert, that he would live to victory or be martyred — well, he kept his promise!”
Source: http://www.dawn.com/news/1142325/islamists-ready-for-mediterranean-battle
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/islamists-ready-mediterranean-battle/d/99875