ANKARA – Kurdish militants destroyed a Turkish Army Leopard 2A4 tank,reportedly by a Soviet-era anti-tank missile launcher in the course ofAnkara’s operation against Kurdish fighters in Syria. Why could such athing have happened to the allegedly “indestructible” German tank?

Military experts point to the vulnerable ammunition compartment as theLeopard-2’s weakest point.

“It has been proven once again that the much-touted Leopard-2 tanks have afatal defect, as most of their onboard ammunition is stored in the forwardleft section with weak armor protection on both sides,” specialistsat Russia’s center of Strategy and Technology Analysis wrote after watchinga video of the destroyed Leopard posted by the Kurdish militants.

They added that the first cases of Leopard-2A4link> tanks beingdestroyed as a result of their onboard ammunition blowing up pertainto tanks the Turkish army lost when fighting Daesh forces near Syria’sal-Bab in December 2016.

[image: Norwegian Leopard 2 A4 NO Tank]Experts believe that the Leopard near Afrin was apparently taken out by aFagot antitank missile launcher, developed in the Soviet Union in theearly-1970s, about a decade before the first Leopard-2 tanks came along.

The Fagots are still being used by the armies of more than 30 countriesaround the world

Ankara launched an offensive with the support of the Free Syrian Armyforces in the Syrian Kurdish-dominated city of Afrin on January 20, aimingto protect its borders from what they call a “terrorist army,” referringto Kurdish militant groups in the area.