56: Chapter 56: We can only mourn for them.

Deir ez-Zor.

After attacking the USA's oil-stealing unit, Major General Zaha immediately returned to Zarzur.

Expecting the USA to conduct an airstrike on Zarzur soon, he hurriedly organized his officers and soldiers to prepare for air defense, while simultaneously evacuating personnel into air-raid shelters to minimize losses from a potential USA airstrike.

Seeing that all preparations for responding to an airstrike were in place, Major General Zaha nervously watched the monitoring radar.

He both hoped the USA fighter jets would arrive sooner, since there was no way to avoid them anyway, yet also hoped they would not come; everyone harbors a glimmer of wishful thinking.

In the anxious wait, the monitoring radar operators kept refreshing the signals, but after half a day, no USA fighter jets appeared on the radar.

Seeing this situation, Major General Zaha was dumbfounded.

"What is going on?!"

According to the USA's typical behavior, against countries with a technological disparity in weaponry, they would absolutely beat them up if they could, never just talk. Only when a country poses a threat to them would they probe here and there, afraid to act, and instead resort to bluster and threats.

But now that the USA's Black Hawk Helicopter had been shot down, the USA had zero reaction—this shouldn't be right, should it?!

Major General Zaha racked his brain but couldn't figure out the reason, so he could only continue to wait patiently, not daring to let his officers and soldiers slack off in the slightest.

However, he waited and waited, but the USA fighter jets never arrived.

This made Major General Zaha unable to control his emotions any longer. He fiercely swung his fist and slammed it onto the desk to relieve his nervous state of mind.

"Could it be that the USA's fighter jets aren't coming?" Major General Zaha speculated.

Just then, Major General Zaha received intelligence: "The Raqqa Military Base in Iran has been airstruck by the USA, reason unknown."

At this, Major General Zaha looked at the report and laughed; it seemed the USA's fighter jets really weren't coming.

It turned out the USA had gone straight to retaliate against Iran's Raqqa Military Base, treating Iran as the culprit behind the crash of the Black Hawk Helicopter.

This time, Iran's Raqqa Military Base had taken the fall for Major General Zaha, sparing Zarzur from a USA airstrike.

Regarding the Raqqa Military Base taking the blame, Major General Zaha could only pray for them.

The USA's retaliation is sometimes just that absurd. When they can't find the real culprit, they just attack whoever they are unhappy with first; after all, no one dares to criticize them.

Major General Zaha finally relaxed. The probability of the USA immediately attacking Zarzur after having already airstruck the Raqqa Military Base was relatively low.

After all, the USA only has so many fighter jets stationed in Syria; they can't fight continuously. Not having resolved one location and immediately committing to combat in another is unacceptable for USA pilots.

Zarzur was considered temporarily safe. However, Major General Zaha did not let his officers and soldiers leave the air-raid shelters immediately; he would only allow them to leave after the USA's retaliatory actions had concluded.

No one knew if the USA might go crazy and want to drop a few missiles on Zarzur to show off its military might.

...

Hera Joint Military Base.

Lieutenant General Green received a report from the F-16 Fighter Jet pilot who had airstruck the Raqqa Military Base.

They had already bombed the Raqqa Military Base once; although Iran had resisted, all their air-defense missile positions had been destroyed, posing no threat to the F-16 Fighter Jet.

Seeing the report that matched his expectations, Lieutenant General Green remained calm.

"Isn't this to be expected? As if Iran could threaten the USA's aircraft? What a joke! The Black Hawk Helicopter crash was just a sneak attack by Iran while the USA was caught off guard; it is by no means a reflection of the USA's true combat power."

Upon learning that the Raqqa Military Base had already been bombed, Lieutenant General Green immediately decided to carry out the next step of the operation: launching a ground assault to completely wipe out this military base of Iran.

Using the Raqqa Military Base to pay tribute to that fallen Black Hawk Helicopter.

After the mobilized 500-man joint force completed assembly, Lieutenant General Green did not hesitate and directly ordered the launch of a full-scale offensive against the Raqqa Military Base.

As the various units' armored reconnaissance vehicles, armored transport vehicles, and infantry fighting vehicles completed their formation and drove out of the Hera Joint Military Base, the Black Hawk Helicopter, Apache Helicopter, and unmanned aerial vehicles providing air cover for these units also flew out of the Hera Joint Military Base.

A massive, fully armed army lunged toward the Raqqa Military Base like a fierce tiger. The dust kicked up filled the sky, undoubtedly demonstrating the danger of this convoy.

Lieutenant General Green did not personally command this force attacking the Raqqa Military Base, but he kept constant watch on the situation of this unit, hoping to resolve the Raqqa Military Base issue quickly so that the fallen Black Hawk Helicopter could rest in peace soon.

Lieutenant General Green was equally confident about destroying the Raqqa Military Base.

After all, the personnel Iran deployed at the Raqqa Military Base were few, their weapons and equipment were not advanced enough, and they lacked heavy firepower, making it impossible for them to stop the USA's offensive.

Moreover, the Raqqa Military Base had already been hit by one round of airstrikes; one only needs to think about it to know that whatever combat capability they could still muster would be negligible.

Before the fully armed USA army, the Raqqa Military Base was like a disrobed young girl; it had absolutely no power to resist and could only be unilaterally flattened, rounded, and wantonly toyed with.

The first to arrive at the Raqqa Military Base were the drones. The drones separated to conduct a comprehensive reconnaissance of the Raqqa Military Base, seeing that the buildings throughout the military base had become broken walls and ruins, with not even a single building left intact.

On the ground, a small number of Iranian soldiers were running about; they likely knew the USA fighter jets had come again and were hurriedly hiding in underground bunkers to find their mommies.

The drones wanted to locate the underground bunkers built by Iran, so they allowed the Iranian soldiers to hide and did not launch an attack immediately.

The air-defense missile positions at the Raqqa Military Base still had quite a few remnants of air-defense missile launchers and equipment that hadn't been cleared in time; after some reconnaissance, it could be determined that they were completely unusable.

This reassured the drones even more; with the Raqqa Military Base lacking air-defense missiles, once the Black Hawk Helicopter and Apache Helicopter arrived later, they could provide air cover for the ground forces as if entering an unpopulated territory, with no fear at all of Iran using air-defense missiles to attack.

A steady stream of intelligence appeared before the joint force commander under the drones' reconnaissance, making the commander's confidence in this offensive against the Raqqa Military Base explode once again.

After all, one could tell just from this intelligence that the Raqqa Military Base had absolutely no possibility of resistance left.

What remained was for the joint forces to easily occupy the Raqqa Military Base and add another bright stroke to their own achievements.

"Lieutenant General Green has given me a good mission!" the commander said, secretly pleased with himself.