Photos- Armed Forces clear al-Zara town of terrorism

The town of al-Zara in Talkalakh countryside, Homs province, has been cleared of terrorism after the Armed Forces eliminated the salafi terrorists in it and the remaining mercenaries surrendered.
A field commander told SANA’s correspondent on the ground on Saturday that the Armed Forces and civil defense managed to restore security and safety to al-Zara, noting that the importance of this town is due to its position on the road between Homs and Tartous and because oil and gas pipelines and main power lines feeding the coastal area pass through it.
He said that terrorists had used it to transport weapons from Lebanon to neighboring areas, and that the repeated terrorist attacks against locals, neighboring villages and oil and gas pipelines, the Armed Forces planned a precise operation taking into consideration the safety of civilians and the need to prevent terrorism from entering or leaving the town.
The commander said that terrorists were holed up in the town, establishing barricades, tunnels and trenches, one of them was 1 kilometer long, while terrorist groups positioned in northern Lebanon tried to sneak across the borders more than once to aid terrorists in al-Zara, but all their attempts fail.
He said that the operation was executed with precision, resulting in destroying a large number of terrorist hideouts and communication centers, dismantling dozens of explosive devices, and eliminating a large number of terrorists, including dozens from the Lebanese group Jund al-Cham.
The commander pointed out that dozens of gunmen turned themselves in to the Syrian Army and surrendered their weapons, adding that US-made weapons were seized in terrorist hideouts.
SANA’s correspondent said that Syrian Army vehicles opened roads immediately, and that the Army continues to dismantle explosives planted by terrorists in citizens’ homes.
A number of locals told the correspondent that terrorists deprived them of base necessities, destroying the town and reducing parts of it into rubble, not sparing even mosques as one group form Jund al-Cham used a mosque as their headquarters, in addition to vandalizing schools and pillaging the town’s carpet factory.
Al-Zara is located in Homs’ western countryside 50 kilometers from Homs city. The town is mainly an agricultural town surrounded by olive orchards.