A Russian TV crew came under fire in Syria when a mainly civilian convoy taking the journalists to the Golan Heights was shelled by Syrian rebels.
The convoy shelled on Saturday was led by a Syrian army military
vehicle, and consisted of several cars occupied by civilians,
including one with Russian TV journalists.
The shelling started when the cars were about 5 kilometers away
from their destination – ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ – the only crossing
between Syria and the Golan Heights, disputed territory claimed
by both Syria and Israel.
“The Syrian troops started to fight the rebels back, but the
insurgents targeted the civilian cars,” said Evgeny Poddubny,
the head of the Russian TV crew and special correspondent for
Rossiya TV channel.
Throughout the fighting, a Russian cameraman kept filming;
gunshots can be heard on the video for 15 minutes. The footage
also features a Syrian army officer reporting to command that
armed militants attacked first, that shelling was coming from
both sides of the road.
“The convoy could not make it to the checkpoint, the rebels
set an ambush on the road, fighting broke out, the military
responded with heavy fire to cover the retreat of our TV crew,
and then they retreated themselves. The militants were further
confronted by the field artillery, which is deployed in the
area,” Poddubny said.
No one was injured in the attack. A similar incident occurred
recently in the Golan Heights buffer zone when Checkpoint Charlie
was attacked and seized by rebels on Thursday, and quickly
recaptured by government troops.
"The militants use the status of the territory; they hide in
the buffer zone and are carrying out attacks like the one you’ve
just witnessed. Then they retreat. And we cannot carry out
special operations here – as that would be a breach of
international agreements. Besides, the rebels are getting help
from Israel – it supplies them with ammunition and even provides
medical aid to terrorists in mobile hospitals,” Syrian army
General Nasr Haidar, whose regiment is deployed in the area, told
Rossiya.
Provocations by the insurgents are seen as major reason why
international peacekeepers have been withdrawing from the area.
Austrian troops, which accounted for 40 percent of the UN
peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, have announced their
withdrawal.
This week, Russia proposed to replace Austrian UN
peacekeepers on the Israel-Syria border. However, the mandate
of the UN mission would not allow Russia's participation.