A Special Air Services dog is being hailed as a hero after he successfully fought off a Jihadi surprise attack while his unit was on patrol in Syria.
The un-named Belgian Malinois was on a “routine patrol” in a small Syrian village with six British Special Air Services soldiers, when the unit came under surprise attack — a “360 degree ambush,” the Daily Mail reports. The soldiers fired on the Jihadis, but they were out-manned, and quickly surrounded.
One of the soldiers let the dog out of his leash and signaled for the dog to attack.
He did.
“The handler removed the dog’s muzzle and directed him into a building from where they were coming under fire,” according to reports obtained by the Daily Star. “They could hear screaming and shouting before the firing from the house stopped.”
When the unit entered the Jihadi outpost, they found the dog “virtually uninjured,” standing over the dead body of a Jihadi gunman.
“[The gunman’s] throat had been torn out and he had bled to death,” the report said. “There was also a lump of human flesh in one corner and a series of blood trails leading out of the back of the building.”
The rest of the Jihadis — or, at least, what was left of them — had fled on foot.
The SAS commander credited the dog with saving the lives of all six men. According to unit command, the SAS was able to reconvene in the village and consolidate their defensive position. They did not sustain any casualties in the attack.
The Daily Mail reports that the actual incident happened two months ago, but information about the dog’s heroism was only recently de-classified.