On the morning of Friday 12 October, Laner’s division moved forward. The 19th Brigade captured the village of Nasej and was joined by the 17th Brigade, with the 79th Brigade following-up. Laner established his headquarters on Tel Shaar, a dominating feature giving good visibility over the volcanic plain on the approaches to Damascus. He ordered the 17th and 19th Brigades to advance towards Knaker, which would outflank the Syrian positions at Sassa, and bring both his and Eitan’s divisions well forward on the main road to Damascus. A battalion of the 19th Brigade reached Tel El-Mal, thus reinforcing Laner’s southern flank as his forces moved in a north-easterly sweep towards Knaker. Despite the heavy losses they had sustained, the 17th and 19th Brigades were already less than three miles south of Knaker, and all the indications were that the Syrian forces were breaking. Laner’s forces pressed on with renewed vigour. Standing on the dominating height of Tel Shaar, Laner followed through binoculars the clearly-visible advance of his forces along the Nasej-Knaker road. During a lull in the advance, he began to survey the entire scope of the Syrian plain. As he looked southwards he suddenly froze. Some six miles away a force of approximately 100-150 tanks in two major groups was deploying and moving northwards towards his open flank. For a moment, he thought that this might be Peled’s division moving after it had broken into Syria, but Northern Command assured him that this division was stuck at Rafid and that these were not Israeli forces. Realizing that he was about to be attacked on his exposed flank while his forces were pursuing the rapidly-withdrawing Syrians to the north-east, he immediately ordered Orr’s 79th Brigade to stop refuelling and to deploy to the south of Nasej as rapidly as possible. Sarig’s force and the 19th Brigade were ordered to stop in their tracks on the road to Knaker and pull back to cover his southern flank. The order flabbergasted them. The brigade commanders pleaded with him. Here, after all they had been through, they had the Syrians on the run, and now the fruits of victory were to be snatched from their grasp! But he refused to entertain their pleas and ordered them to turn southwards immediately.
In the meantime, without reference to the developments on Laner’s southern flank, Hofi had decided to strengthen his force and had ordered Peled to transfer the 20th Brigade to Laner. Thus, a few minutes after Laner had sighted the enemy force advancing across the plain towards his southern flank, the 20th Brigade commander reported for duty in Laner’s advance headquarters. He was ordered to deploy his brigade in the area of Tel Maschara and Tel El-Mal.
In accordance with the undertakings it had given to Egypt’s General Ismail Ali, the Iraqi Government had despatched its 3rd Armoured Division to Syria upon the outbreak of war. Two brigades arrived in the first week (ending 11 October): an armoured brigade with 130 tanks and a mechanized brigade with 50 tanks. These were to be joined by another armoured brigade with 130 tanks some days later. Reaching the volcanic plain to the south-west of Damascus known as the Great Leja on Friday 12 October, before dawn the Iraqi tanks were taken off their transporters and advanced across the plain towards the southern flank of the Israeli forces, which were moving towards Knaker and were endangering the Kiswe military camps west of Damascus. The armoured brigade moved in a northerly direction, while the mechanized brigade moved in a northwesterly direction towards Tel Maschara. The first Iraqi tanks came up against Orr’s 79th Brigade that day, which engaged them at 300 yards distance; they knocked out seventeen tanks and the Iraqi force stopped in its tracks.
Night came on, and it was clear to Laner that the force he now knew to be Iraqi would launch a major concentrated attack. The commander of the 20th Brigade was disturbed because one of his battalions was late in arriving, so he sent out a brigade headquarters officer in a jeep to look for it. Driving in the darkness the jeep collided with a tank. When the officer stood up to advise the tank crew that they were off course, he discovered to his horror that he had bumped into an Iraqi vehicle. He beat a hasty retreat. (The Israeli battalion, which had gone astray, was finally extricated with artillery support from amidst the newly-arrived Iraqis.)
As darkness fell, Laner prepared for battle. The 19th Brigade was deployed aloiig the road at the foot of Tel Shaar; Orr’s 79th Brigade was deployed from the 19th Brigade northwards to the crossroads and then southwards towards Nasej; Sarig’s 17th Brigade was spread south along the road from Orr’s to Nasej, while the 20th Brigade was sited along the Maschara-Jaba road. Thus, Laner created a ‘box’ from Maschara to Jaba to Maatz to Nasej, leaving an opening of some four and a half miles between Maschara and Nasej. The situation was one that armour commanders dream about.
It was a bright, moonlit night when Laner’s deputy, Brigadier-General Moshe Brill, and his intelligence officer informed him that the Iraqis were advancing into the opening between Nasej and Maschara. Laner could hardly believe them and went to the observation point to ascertain for himself. All divisional guns and tanks were turned inwards to the centre of the box, ready to fire at any moving target. Suddenly, the Iraqis stopped. By 21.00 hours, there was complete quiet. Laner’s reports had created an atmosphere of tension and expectancy, and, as the hours passed without developments, snide comments began to be made by the staff officers of Northern Command. Laner was feeling uncomfortable. The Iraqi 3rd Armoured Division had in the meantime been reinforced by its 6th Armoured Brigade and, at 03.00 hours on Saturday 13 October, they launched a divisional attack, moving right into Laner’s box. Laner’s forces held their fire as the Iraqi division moved into the trap. The first streaks of light were appearing in the east when the Sherman tanks of the 19th Brigade opened fire. Their range was 200 yards. Battle was joined and the Iraqis withdrew in disorder, leaving behind some 80 destroyed tanks. Not one Israeli tank was hit. The Iraqi 8th Mechanized Brigade suffered the brunt of the casualties in the first major armoured battle in which the Iraqi Army had ever engaged. Indeed, almost a complete brigade was lost in a matter of minutes. Laner’s forces moved on to capture Tel Maschara and Tel Nasej, while paratroopers mopped-up in the hills.
With the advent of the Iraqi armoured force in the field of battle, the 3rd Armoured Division was later followed by another armoured division. Hofi decided to cover his flanks, while at the same time developing local efforts to improve the Israeli positions. The 7th Brigade, by now very spread out, took the hills north and south of Nasej and fought back counterattacks by day and night at Mazrat Beit Jan, Tel Shams and Tel El-Mal until the cease-fire. The discovery that arms taken in one battle, including French-built AML armoured cars, were Western revealed that Saudi Arabian troops had entered the line and were fighting. All during this period Eitan initiated very successful night raids with paratroopers and units of the ‘Golani’ Brigade against tanks, positions and supply routes behind the enemy lines. The ‘Golani’ Brigade alone accounted for the destruction of at least twenty enemy tanks in these raids and, indeed, in this respect Eitan was the one outstanding Israeli commander who maintained the traditions that had been established in the Israeli forces over the years.
Laner’s forces were by now utterly exhausted and at the end of their tether. Yet the 19th Brigade captured two heights of great tactical and strategic importance — Tel Antar and Tel El-Alakieh — which were later to prove vital in holding the Israeli line. By this time, a shortage of 155mm artillery ammunition was being felt, and the forces were advised that tank ammunition was in short supply. The order was to hold.
On Tuesday, 16 October, Laner’s division was again under attack. His forces reported that Centurion tanks were advancing and, when they saw the red pennants on the antennae, they realized that these were tanks of the Jordanian 40th Armoured Brigade, which had entered Syria on the 13th. It was one of the quirks of history that Jordan’s crack 40th Armoured Brigade should rush to save Syria from the threat posed to its army and capital city by the Israeli forces, for, in September 1970 during the civil war in Jordan (when King Hussein was fighting for his existence against the Palestinian terrorist organizations in the streets of his capital city), the Syrians had attempted to ‘stab him in the back’ by launching an armoured force of divisional strength against Jordan in the area of Irbid-Ramthia. The 40th Armoured Brigade had fought bravely against the invasion and held the superior Syrian forces until the Syrians were urged by their Soviet advisers to withdraw when various moves in the area indicated the possibility of American and Israeli involvement.
War had caught King Hussein by surprise — according to his own admission. He was soon under pressure to enter the war, but he realized that, while he was pinning down Israeli forces along his border, an attack against Israel itself would bring the full force of the Israeli Air Force against his armoured forces. His experience in 1967 in this respect was sufficient. Furthermore, he owed little to his northern Arab neighbour: he could recall only too well how he had borne the brunt of the Israeli counterattack in 1967 while the Syrians looked on and did not intervene to help him. As pressure grew among his officers, Hussein mobilized his reserves and, on 13 October, the 40th Armoured Brigade crossed into Syria at Dera’a, entering the line between Syrian and Iraqi forces on the south of the Israeli enclave pushing into Syria. The Jordanians moved towards Tel Maschara and suddenly broke to the west before Tel El-Mal. Sarig moved his brigade up to the slopes of the Tel and waited until the Jordanian tanks drew near before opening fire. His fire hit 28 tanks, and the Jordanian brigade withdrew. At this point, in an uncoordinated manner, the Iraqis began to move from Kfar Shams in the east towards Tel Antar and Tel El-Alakieh. The 20th and 19th Brigades held the attack while Laner ordered Sarig’s 17th Brigade to move in a wide, outflanking movement to the south. Battle was joined and after a number of hours the Iraqis withdrew, leaving some 60 tanks burning on the battlefield.
Inter-Arab co-ordination proved to be very faulty on the battlefield. Every morning between 10.00 and 11.00 hours, a counterattack was mounted against the southern flank of the Israeli enclave by the Iraqis and Jordanians, supported by the Syrian and Iraqi Air Forces. Rarely did they succeed in co-ordinating and establishing a common language: on two occasions the Jordanians attacked while the Iraqis failed to join in; frequently Iraqi artillery support fell on the advancing or withdrawing Jordanians; and, on a number of occasions, Syrian aircraft attacked and shot down Iraqi aircraft. In general, the Iraqi forces moved slowly and cautiously, and were led without any imagination or flair. (This hesitant behaviour in battle was to be reflected once again in its performance when the Iraqi Army invaded Iran in the Iraqi-Iranian War along the Shatt al Arab in September 1980. Its leadership was hesitant, its movement was slow, and its performance, despite its overwhelming preponderance in equipment, was. disappointing.)
On 17 October, Peled’s division relieved Laner and took over responsibility for the southern sector of the Israeli enclave. Hofi ordered him to capture Um Butne, a village with dominating high ground around it, some four miles due east of Kuneitra and controlling the Kuneitra opening. It was essential to widen the Israeli opening into the enclave now held in Syria, and the capture of Um Butne would give more depth to the southern flank. Furthermore, taking Um Butne would add an additional element of security to the Kuneitra opening and obtain control of a north-south road within the enclave. Units of the 31st Parachute Brigade, which had captured Tel Shams so successfully only a few nights before, attacked at night and captured the village. Northern Command then ordered the paratroopers to be relieved by armoured infantry. In the midst of the handover, eight Syrian tanks equipped with optical night-fighting equipment approached and attacked the relieving battalion headquarters. An Israeli counterattack saved the situation, but not before severe losses had been incurred as a result of the costly error of committing reserves during an attack before the inevitable enemy counterattack.
The 20th Brigade in Peled’s division was attacked on Friday morning, in the area of Tel Antar and Tel El-Alakieh, by a battalion of Iraqi commandos. Thereafter, an Iraqi attack in divisional strength was mounted across the plain by a force outnumbering the Israelis by three to one: 130 tanks and over 100 armoured personnel carriers supported by heavy artillery concentrations advanced on units of the 20th Brigade. Peled deployed the 19th Brigade on the western flank of the 20th. All morning, a fierce battle raged as the Iraqis tried desperately to retake these two hills dominating the Great Leja. Three major attacks were mounted as the battle raged for some seven hours. It was a day in which Northern Command could not hope for air support (the Israeli Air Force being entirely preoccupied on the Suez front with the Egyptian Third Army about to be cut off by the Israeli sweep towards the city of Suez on the west bank of the Canal). It succeeded in making up for the lack of air power, however, by very effective use of concentrated artillery support.
During the first Iraqi attack against the 20th Brigade, the 19th Brigade came under heavy fire and was pinned down. By dint of armoured manoeuvre, it managed to extricate itself from this situation and made a broad sweep towards the southern flank of the Iraqi attack. This move broke their first attack in the early morning. At 10.00 hours, as the Iraqis mounted their second attack, the Jordanian 40th Armoured Brigade moved out of the area of Tel Hara towards the western flank of Peled’s division at Tel El-Mal and Tel Maschara. The Jordanians advanced — in a formation much wider than the Iraqi formation — against Tel Maschara, which was held by a small Israeli force of a company of tanks with supporting infantry. It was obvious that something had gone wrong on the Arab side: the Jordanian and Iraqi attacks were uncoordinated, while the Israeli forces were only too well prepared to take advantage of this; the Jordanian attack this time was late. Peled’s orders were that the force on Tel Maschara, which would not be reinforced, should hold the Jordanian attacking force by allowing it to advance to within short range. The reconnaissance unit on the Um Butne hills to the west would attack the left flank of the Jordanians as soon as they had become involved with the Israeli force at Tel Maschara. The Jordanians advanced slowly, taking over an hour to move towards their objective. This enabled the Israeli artillery to concentrate entirely on the attack of the Iraqi force that had come to grips with the 20th Brigade. (In the meantime, the sun had risen and was no longer blinding the Israeli forces.) By noon the Jordanian forces had reached Tel Maschara and began to climb up the hill. The Israeli force holding the hill engaged them and destroyed the leading elements. At this point, the reconnaissance unit launched its attack on the Jordanian flank. The Jordanians left some twelve tanks burning on the hill and began to withdraw, with the Israeli forces harrying them in their flight until 15.00 hours. The total Jordanian armoured loss that day was some twenty tanks.
Meanwhile, the third and final Iraqi attack was being mounted with determination as wave after wave of armour moved up to attack the 20th Brigade. The Israelis had suffered heavily during the day and the brigade commander felt that it was touch and go. In the middle of the battle, he created a reserve of three tanks and placed it in the rear. The Iraqis advanced up the hill against the heavily-depleted Israeli forces, with tanks sometimes firing at ranges down to five yards. Iraqi tanks became interspersed among the defending Israeli tanks: the situation was critical as the battle swayed to and fro on the two hills. At this point, the 20th Brigade commander ordered his reserve of three tanks to move out across the plain in a wide, flanking movement to the north and attack the Iraqi forces from their northern flank. They moved in a wide sweep and came in from the north — which the Iraqis believed to be protected by Syrian forces — taking the Iraqi forces by surprise. The sudden appearance of a
Force on their northern flank knocked them off balance and, at the last and most critical moment, they turned and withdrew. Some 60 burning Iraqi tanks dotted the plain and the slopes of Tel Antar and Tel El-Alakieh, with about the same number of armoured personnel carriers; columns of dead Iraqi infantry clearly marked the line of approach in the three major attacks. Although Arab counterattacks continued daily against the Israeli enclave until the cease-fire, this was the last major armoured battle to be fought on the northern front.
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