Mercenary Black Mamba

Chapter 223: Chapter 26, Episode 17: The Syria-Ruman Plan

The American military equipment found in Syria’s military ammunition storage was connected to the Lebanese Civil War. Lebanon was a country that had struggled with conflicts between the Pro-Western Christian government and Islam when it first separated from Syria.

In 1958, a large-scale civil war had broken out between the Pro-Western Christian government and the Progressive Islamic Fundamentalists in the united citizens front. The U.S. had started a strong force called large-scale military intervention. The violent civil war had been suppressed on the surface, but sparks had flown everywhere.

In 1975, the Islamic armed organizations had gathered to resume the total war. At the simultaneous provocations, the Lebanon government and Christian forces got beaten up ruthlessly.

Syria had used the excuse of wrapping up the situation to send two active-duty divisions from Beqaa Valley. The Islamic rebels had cheered.

Assad was from the Alawites faction—a small, neglected group. After entering office, he had grappled to gain the recognition of the Sunni faction, the majority party. It was expected that Assad would help the rebels and push out the Maronites.

Their expectations had returned as a betrayal. Unlike Islam’s expectations, Assad took the Maronites’ side, the concentrated Christian powerhouse of the Lebanese government. The Islamic rebels had their ankles axed off by someone they had trusted. Of course, they were mad.

The Western powers were also confused, but there was a story behind it. There had been a secret pact between the CIA and the Mukhabarat.

Syria had stationed three divisions in Lebanon since the beginning of 1970. Assad had dreamt of Levant Syria, ignoring reality.

Assad didn’t want to release his control over Lebanon. He also didn’t want the Sunni faction to gain control. He had longed to earn the Christians’ support to strengthen his weakened power base.

The CIA had accurately read Assad’s intentions before approaching him. In 1975, the CIA had found evidence that Syria possessed a mass-murder weapon, Sarin and VX. The CIA then pressured Assad.

The Jewish political powerhouses in the United States had a simple goal, “Protect Israel. Protect the Pro-Western Christian government.”

The U.S. and Assad’s intentions had been aligned. Assad had mobilized the additional forces to push out the Islamic rebels, while the U.S. had ignored Assad’s possessions of mass-murder weapons. That was Aleppo’s secret pact.

While the CIA had ignored the great number of mass-murder weapons in the evil’s hands, they had also supplied them with military weapons. The evil would always be an ally at the discretion of the U.S. They weren’t the world’s police. The U.S. was but a powerful country that moved according to the wishes of its people and the Jews.

From the Muslim’s point of view, Assad’s actions were regarded as a betrayal. That was the reason behind the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to execute Assad. Bakri had also been released from prison because Assad’s government had coveted the Orthodox Christians’ favor. Such political flows were bound to explosively clash in the future. Black Mamba was the very person who had pulled the trigger.

Black Mamba had no way of understanding the Middle East’s complicated political ties and the secret pact with the CIA. Whether the duffle bag was made in America or Korea, he could resolve his suspicions later.

The whining siren prompted him to act fast. He quickly went through the stacked boxes. He was confident at locating a needle in a haystack, but when a needle was hidden among similar-looking hairpins, it wasn’t an easy feat. He founded what he was looking for in the ninth lane.

“It’s a lemon.”

Lemons were an F1 grenade that the Soviets had mass-produced during WWII. It looked similar to a pineapple, but it was called a lemon. It was because the American grenades were called pineapples. It weighed 600 grams and didn’t differ much from France’s F1 in terms of explosive power.

Somehow, all grenades had an F1, whether it was from the Soviets, France, or America. He shoved the lemons into the duffle bag. There was still space after he had shoved in five boxes worth of lemons.

“Ho, isn’t this something that you would see in a museum?”

While shoving the lemons aside, an RKG-3 anti-tank grenade appeared. It was a large, bat-like 1.2 kilograms grenade that the Soviets had used during WWII. It was a strange grenade with an internal parachute in the bat.

The parachute was attached to attack the top of a tank’s cupola at the time. Its directional explosion was great, but it wasn’t useful in battle.

After sweeping in a box of those bats, the duffle bag became full. It was five boxes of lemons, 100 in total, and a box of bats, 20 in total. The weight of the duffle bag exceeded 80 kilograms.

Even if he did take everything in the storage room, there wasn’t much to use. He couldn’t carry around a rocket launcher or bring a mortar around an enemy’s territory. Hand grenades were the easiest to handle.

Black Mamba was a human recoilless grenade launcher. No, he was more precise than a grenade launcher and could cover a long-range. Aiming a grenade into an enemy’s territory as though he was sniping? That was like the reincarnation of a war god.

He briefly thought about arming the Syrian Orthodox Christians. He shook his head and erased the thought. They were peaceful people. He couldn’t drag them into a bloody war to achieve his own goals.

“Yes, I’m going, I’m going. You brat,” Black Mamba complained as he glared at the whining siren.

There was no point in destroying its internal wires. He took out 300 grams of C-4 from his backpack and attached it to the high-explosives box, before shoving in its head. He set the timer to 100 seconds.

“F***, the five-minute contingency unit will be waving their empty hands at me instead. Keke.”

Laughter escaped from his mouth. The entire storage room was about to be blown apart. No one had moved from the outer lights around the camp after it had turned on.

“Eh, they’re coming now.”

Since Black Mamba could sense some soldiers moving out of the tent, he could leisurely move around. His dimensional sight was a crafty skill that could read movements within a radius of 500 meters. There was no reason to rush.

“Adios! Have a trying day.”

After saying those playful words, he attached himself to the cliff. The 80 kilograms duffle bag and 40 kilograms backpack didn’t hinder him. The weight didn’t matter as long as his hands and feet were free. A large lizard slipped down the cliff.

An explosion occurred when he was about five meters away from the top.

Boom—

Crash—

A large explosion erupted after a small one. The entire lid of the ammunition storage room flew into the sky.

Woosh—

The blow from the explosion smacked Black Mamba, who was just about to climb up.

“Huh, it’s helping me.”

It was the kind of pressure that would have exploded any average person’s intestines. Black Mamba rode on the shockwave and flipped easily over the cliff.

Boom—

Boom—

Continuous explosions rang from the ammunition storage room.

Woosh woosh woosh—

Bullets soared in groups. They were the rifle bullets from the storage room. Mercury fulminate was weak against heat and shock, unlike its composition. The explosions and high temperatures had caused 1,000,000s of bullets to fly everywhere. The orange light from the bullet’s gunpowder rained down in the night sky.

“Ek!”

While watching the fireworks, Black Mamba hurried and hid behind a rock. Defective shields were useless against continuous explosions. There was plenty of ammunition in the 10 by 10 meters storage room. Sounds of explosions that deafened the heavens kept ringing. Cleaning it up would be hard, but that was the responsibility of the person in charge of the storage room.

A great firework display went off in Sharran Valley. The sky turned red, and countless orange streaks split the night sky.

“Eheheheh! Good, good! Explode! Explode!”

Mohammad twisted his legs while walking under the shade of a rock and laughed strangely. Satisfaction ran through his spine every time an explosion went off. Even at his most satisfying moments, he couldn’t have been happier than now.

He was a blessed man to be watching the world’s greatest firework display for free. Since his birth, there wasn’t a more refreshing and exciting display than at that moment. The sorrows of his past—where he had been discriminated against for being an Orthodox Christian and chased away to other lands—disappeared instantly. He hadn’t expected that such an exciting moment would happen when he decided to follow Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa. It wasn’t dangerous either.

“Hooray, Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa!”

Mohammad’s eyes flashed with passion and excitement.

Black Mamba and Mohammad returned at 4:30 in the morning. In two and a half hours, Black Mamba had gotten rid of the masjid that was the Muslim Brotherhood’s base and blown the south-western Syrian military’s ammunition storage room.

There were two large olive trees in front of Bakri’s house. There was a stone on the third branch of the right tree. Mohammad reached for it and dropped the stone. Black Mamba glanced at him and lost his interest. It was a common communication method used by those of the underground organization.

Black Mamba took a shower and leisurely went to sleep. Mohammad immediately headed outside again without rest. A man appeared from the forest while he was walking 300 meters in the lake’s direction.

“Sir Mohammad, all the Mukhabarat that were stationed around Maydanki Lake and watching the villages have disappeared. I don’t know what happened, but the Shabiha have also disappeared.”

“Hehe, there are more watchers around Afrin Village, right?”

“How did you know?” the man asked in surprise.

“Hehe. A true leader to lead all the Orthodox Christians have arrived. He has come. The Mukhabarat and the Muslim factions wouldn’t care about us anymore. Tell all the followers. Tell them not to enter any of the Sunni faction’s villages. Tell them to refrain from traveling. If we remain quiet, there will be no danger.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“Ooh, has the apostle that we’ve been waiting for finally arrived?”

“Yes. Discreetly tell our brothers that Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa has come. Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa has caused conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian military. Take care of yourself and gather information on both sides.”

“Yes. I’ll take my leave.”

The man disappeared into the darkness.

“Kekeke! A fight between the badger and wolf, hm? Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa was right! Kekeke!”

His strange laughter didn’t stop. Alli, Bakri, and Mohammad’s conversation lasted until the next morning. Mohammad, who had been talking about Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa’s successful feats until his mouth went dry, couldn’t shake off his excitement. Alli and Bakri’s mouths had also turned dry from the exclamations.

Tututututu—

At the break of dawn, a helicopter’s motor echoed loudly. A Soviet Union’s original Mi-24B Hind-A helicopter went around the lake once and flew towards Aleppo. Another helicopter followed, throwing propaganda papers that made it seem as though it was snowing.

“Hehehe, it’s starting!” Mohammad smiled with bloodshot eyes.

“Brother, what does it say?”

“It is obvious. Everyone’s panicking because of Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa’s actions. We will be massacring all the Muslim Brotherhood members who threaten our country’s security. All citizens should cooperate. We will kill anyone with a weapon. Soon, other Mujahideen will join the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria will flip on its head.”

“You think so? Even when Assad has sided with those terrorist organizations?”

Bakri was suspicious. Mohammad shook his head.

“No. They’ve only been playing the crocodile and crocodile bird for each other’s benefits. They turned their backs on each other the moment Assad raised an issue about the country’s laws.”

The case that Mohammad was talking about had happened in 1973. There had been a law in Syria’s constitution, which said that only Muslims could become the country’s leaders. As Assad was a part of the Alawites, he had removed that requirement.

The reason was that most of the members were from the Sunni faction, which made up 80 percent of the population, and they had referred to all Muslims, aside from those of the Sunni faction, as heathens. In Syria, the Alawites were treated similarly to any other Christian faction. In Assad’s point of view, the law that blurred the lines of his power wasn’t beneficial at all.

Assad removing the constitution’s requirement had angered the exclusive Sunni faction. Then, they spread the word that Assad was selling Allah’s land. The Muslim Brotherhood had caused minor riots with the aid of 1,000s of masjids throughout the country. That had been the start of Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood’s poor relationship.

The Muslim Brotherhood had organized terrors and riots while Assad had used the military to ruthlessly stop them. He had even attacked the masjids.

The Muslim Brotherhood had taken a step back due to Assad’s strong move. Then, Black Mamba had exploded their central head while they were gaining their strength underground. The silent grudges that Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood had against each other started the third round.

Krrr—

Krrr—

Kudududdu—

A loud Caterpillar disrupted dawn.

“Huh, a tank, too?”

“It’s the Third Armored Brigade stationed in Sawran. Assad must be determined to have them leave Turkey’s borders.”

Tanks lined down the road from the north-east. It was a Soviet T-34 with a sound top. It was ancient, but it was a grim reaper for foot soldiers. A truck filled with soldiers followed.

Syria and Turkey were like a monkey and dog. The tank brigade in Sawran—a border town—was the defensive line against Turkey. That meant the Syrian government was observing the situation closely enough to pull tanks out of their border’s defense line.

Syria had accepted the Soviet Union’s tank units. There were 10 tanks for a company. A platoon had three tanks, and a company had three platoons each. Including the tank that the commander was riding on, there were 10. A battalion had three companies, and a regiment had four battalions. To summarize, 10 out of the 120 tanks in Sawran would be deployed to Aleppo.

Mohammad and Bakri shook their heads. One move from Sir Ddu-bai-buru-pa had shaken the entirety of Syria. His scale was different. Bakri looked at the room where Black Mamba was sleeping and gritted his teeth.