After lunch, the rebels, who had been silent for a long time, finally moved.

Subsequently, reports from the north bank confronted Major General Nanigel's speculation that a unit of the rebels had crossed the Tigris.

There were only a few hundred people, and all infantry, which was supposed to be a reconnaissance force.

Wang Dong contacted Yunlong and got the latest satellite photos.

About thirty kilometers upstream of the Tigris, the rebels have erected a boat bridge, and at least one mechanized infantry brigade is crossing the river.

Regardless of whether the enemy is copied from the north or advances in a roundabout way, he must hold the city on the north bank, or at least the bridgehead.

After consulting with Nanijer, Wang Dong transferred an infantry battalion from the reserve and arranged for sappers to plant explosives on the only bridge.

Of course, the bridge over the Tigris can only be blown up as a last resort.

The point is that after blowing up the bridge, it also loses the ability to control the north bank, although it can block the rebels on the other side of the Tigris River, but it cannot prevent the rebels from advancing along the Tigris River towards Sugshuyukh, and in the end they still have to send troops to defend Sugshuyukh.

In addition, having taken control of the north bank of the city, the rebels were able to shell the south bank of the city across the Tigris.

It can be seen that the bridgehead is extremely critical.

As long as the bridgehead on the north bank is controlled, not only can the rebels be prevented from attacking the city on the south bank, but also the rebels will be held back and the rebels will not dare to advance on Sugshuyukh.

To this end, Wang Dong then asked Redon and Churkin to each bring a squadron, a total of more than 100 operatives.

Their mission was not to defend the city on the north bank, but to strengthen the defensive deployment of the bridgehead and try to establish a complete defense system before the rebels arrived.

In fact, the main thing is to find and repair the loopholes in the defenders' defensive lines.

Prior to this, Wang Dong did not attach much importance to the defense of the north bank, after all, the main force of the rebels was all on the south bank, and the urban area on the north bank was not threatened.

Hopefully, it's still too late.

In the afternoon, the two sides engaged in fierce battles around several strongholds on the western outskirts of the city.

The defenders built a large number of forts, dozens of half-buried machine-gun forts alone, and dug more than a dozen trenches to link these bunkers.

The rebels launched a desperate attack, and the defenders did not give up an inch of land, and the battle was extremely fierce.

In the evening, under the cover of a group of operatives led by Zhang Zilan, the defenders in the western suburbs abandoned their positions and withdrew into the city one after another.

Faced with a much larger number of troops and more powerful firepower, the defenders had no choice but to retreat.

Continuing to hold on to the defensive positions on the outskirts of the city would inevitably result in greater casualties, and judging by the day's fighting, the rebels would certainly attack at night.

Obviously, the infantry battalion, which had been reduced by more than a third, might not have been able to hold out until dawn.

Of course, the rebels also paid a very heavy price.

At least 5 M1A1s and more than a dozen M2A3s were completely destroyed before the positions abandoned by the defenders, and the number of rebel casualties would not fall below 400.

However, after the defenders abandoned the last line of defense on the outskirts of the city, Nasiriyah had opened its doors to the rebels.

Interestingly, the rebels did not expect the defenders to voluntarily abandon the outskirts of the city.

Shortly after nightfall, when the defenders had largely withdrawn, the rebels began shelling, pouring thousands of shells on positions that had been abandoned by the defenders.

It was not until about ten o'clock in the evening that the rebels came to their senses and found that the defenders had withdrawn into the city.

Subsequently, the rebels sent a battalion of troops to attack the city of Nasiriyah.

The attack lasted less than half an hour, and ended when the three M1A1s in front were smashed to scrap metal by anti-tank missiles, killing more than a dozen infantrymen.

Fighting at night, apparently, was not the strong point of the rebels.

As expected, the rebels will rest at night, take the opportunity to consolidate the positions they have just captured, and wait until the sky is bright before organizing an attack.

Wang Dong did not miss this opportunity.

After consulting with Nanijal, he summoned Iron Tiger over and asked Iron Tiger to launch a counterattack with the support of the defenders' only tank company.

In the second half of the night, the counterattack began.

Eight government M1A1 main battle tanks took the lead and caught the rebels on the outskirts of the city by surprise, destroying several military vehicles in the first round of fire.

By the time the rebels came to their senses, the defenders had already slaughtered them.

After nearly two hours of fierce fighting, the defenders basically recaptured the lost positions.

It's just that the rebels also threw in armored forces at this time.

At around three o'clock in the morning, tanks on both sides exchanged fire, and the first tank battle since the Civil War broke out, although the total number of tanks committed by both sides was less than twenty.

At five o'clock in the morning, with the arrival of the rebel army, Wang Dong gave the order to retreat.

Although the lost positions were not recaptured, and some losses were suffered, three M1A1s were completely destroyed, and one had sighting equipment destroyed, but the purpose of the counterattack was achieved, that is, the rebels failed to complete the preparations for the attack before dawn, and therefore could not launch an attack after dawn.

In addition, when the defenders launched a counterattack, the Royal Saudi Air Force sent fighter jets to bomb the rebels' positions.

The Royal Saudi Air Force dispatched more than a dozen fighters, the main force being four F-15SAs, to drop dozens of tons of bombs on the rebel positions, but these fighters dropped bombs dozens of kilometers away, and flew away after dropping the bombs.

As a result, the rebels did not fire anti-aircraft missiles at these fighters.

Although, according to the reports of the Saudi pilots, they were irradiated by anti-aircraft radars before dropping the bombs, and two of them were also locked by anti-aircraft radars, the Saudi fighters were too far away and were likely to be outside the FD2000 interception range.

Of course, the possibility of the Saudi pilots lying cannot be ruled out.

The bombardment caused some trouble for the rebels, but did not achieve the most important purpose.

After daybreak, the rebels began shelling the city of Nasiriyah, and the rebels who arrived outside the city began to build offensive positions in preparation for the attack.

Throughout the day, the rebels were preparing for the offensive.

In fact, it is to build offensive positions, allow the combat units involved in the offensive to be deployed in advance, and destroy suspicious targets on the offensive route with artillery fire.

It can be seen that after the fighting in the past few days, the rebels are also apprehensive about the defenders.

If nothing else, just those powerful anti-tank missiles can thwart the rebel offensive.

In addition, the rebel commanders must have discovered that there was a special forces unit inside the defenders, using the most advanced countersunk guns produced by D&F.

You know, only Saudi special forces are officially equipped with such firearms.

After a series of setbacks, the rebels certainly did not expect to take Nasiriyah as they did in Semavo.

The rebels will certainly not give up, but will be fully prepared and invest enough troops to try to storm the city in one fell swoop, at least to open a breakthrough in the defenders' defensive line.

Obviously, it is not too much to spend a day preparing for the offensive.