Syria Army Takes Key Town near Capital
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Syrian troops recaptured the key town of Adra northeast of the capital Damascus on Thursday, nine months after fighting broke out there pitting the army against militants.
The town was empty of its inhabitants, and the marks of fighting and bombing were everywhere, said an AFP journalist who visited the town on a government-organized trip.
An army commander on the ground said troops entered Adra at five different locations, "and fought the armed men who were trying to cover for their retreating friends. Several (rebels) were killed."
Adra was completely empty of its residents, and that the walls of the buildings at the entrances to the town were riddled with the marks of shelling and gunfire, the journalist said.
Broken glass and shrapnel filled the streets of the town, to which the power supply had been cut off.
Militants captured Adra in December last year and Syrian forces have been fighting to retake it ever since.
They have advanced incrementally in the town, one of the country's biggest industrial zones strategically located northeast of Damascus.
On Thursday, the AFP journalist saw tunnels the militants had dug under the buildings to move from area to area of the town, as well as holes they had blasted through walls separating apartment buildings.