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FSA Fighters Pinned Down by Islamic State (2015)
Published 3 years ago
Members of the Free Syrian Army's Sultan Murad unit find themselves sitting the open as Islamic State fighters spray their position with small arms fire.
This is actually not the worst display of infantry tactics I have ever seen. While it's certainly not textbook, the FSA fighters from the Sultan Murad division aren't doing anything grossly negligible here. There is no footage leading up to this that was cut, so from the perspective we have, they got themselves pinned down in the open, and one of their fighters was wounded in the process.
Instead of cutting and running, they attempt to return accurate fire, pick up their wounded, and progressively retreat out of the fire until they can get to a more tenable position to continue the fight. It's worth noting that at several points, they actually bound back like they have real combat training, which is of course almost unheard of from groups like this who choose to train by throwing gasoline on the ground, lighting the sand on fire, and shooting at their buddies as they low crawl and barrel roll through the flames.
This footage was recorded in 2015, and was taken from the Syrian Civil War. For the unimitated, the FSA was the catch-all for the opposition to the Syrian Regime throughout the war. FSA is an acronym for Free Syrian Army, which was comprised of dozens of different groups spread out across a number of regions throughout Syria. They fought against not only the Syrian Arab Army, but also the Islamic State, and several other bad-faith actors in the region, and were also comprised of some extremist elements.
