Ma'loula, September 11, 2013
"The military say that Ma'loula is freed. The militants in control of this Christian village for over a week. We are going there to found out for sure," a correspondent of RT Maria Finoshina wrote in her "Twitter".
Having arrived to the village, the RT crew found that the army and the militants were continuing to shoot at each other: the journalists got into the very epicenter. The assistant operator Kirill Vagin suffered a ricochet shot forehead injury.
A week ago the "Al-Qaeda" forces launched several attacks in the Christian village. Four days ago the army of Bashar Al-Assad gained control over the territory, however, the militants later forced the military out of there.
Ma'loula is a settlement on the mountain 60 kilometres north-east of Damascus with a population of about 2000 people. It became a great pilgrimage site for Christians from all over the world. The village became a stronghold of many Christian movements and one of few places in the world where the people still speak Aramaic--the language which was spoken by Jesus Christ.
"It is hard to believe that once one of the most important Christian habitations in the world has now become a battlefield," related Maria Finoshina the day before, shouting the gunshooting sounds down.
As a result of the fighting, the Convent of St. Thecla, situated on the top of the mountain, was greatly damaged.
Apart from being a UNESCO world heritage site, Ma'loula is also a strategically important place on the Syrian map as it is situated on the large motorway between Damascus and Homs. The militants already have bases to the south and to the west of the country's capital, so seizure of a settlement in the north-east would help them increase pressure on Damascus.
