© Eva Bartlett | MintPress NewsA Hadar resident stands outside of his shrapnel damaged home.
The roughly 10,000 defiant villagers of Hadar are isolated and under constant threat of attack. Until December 2017, Hadar was surrounded on three sides by terrorists and was attacked many times.
Positioned in a valley, with the al-Qaeda alliance until December 2017 occupying Beit Jinn and other villages to the east, Hadar also borders the ceasefire line of the occupied Syrian Golan, an area teeming with still more al-Qaeda terrorists. From their positions inside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) zone of the occupied Syrian Golan, terrorists in Jubata al-Khashab (roughly 6 kilometers directly south of Hadar), Turunjah (roughly 5 kilometers south of Hadar), and Ufaniyah (further south than Jubata al-Khashab), have fired mortars, missiles, and other explosives on Hadar, something acknowledged even by the UN Secretary-General.
In his December 6, 2017 report, the Secretary-General noted that terrorist groups fighting in the UNDOF area of operation include "the listed terrorist group Jabhat Fath al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) and Jaysh Khalid Ibn al-Walid, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)."
The same report noted the attacks from the three villages towards Hadar were preceded by a "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," which killed nine people. In Hadar, I would learn that the car bomb didn't just target "a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar," as per the UN report, but was headed towards the heart of the village when shot at by Hadar defenders. The vehicle exploded less than 100 meters from a school, at 9 a.m., according to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel. Had the village not been on alert, and families staying at home, the number killed would have surely been higher and included many children.
Comment: Despite the threats of the US and Israel, the Syrian Army has launched an anti-terrorist operation in the southern area of the country:
Interestingly, at least some units of the Free Syrian Army (a 'rebel' group) are now fighting on the side of government forces:
US/Israel-backed Al-Qaeda launches attack on pro-Syria settlements in S. Syria - repelled by FSA and Syria troops