Playing chicken with a missile: The astonishing moment Syrian driver dodges incoming rebel missile that was locked on his pick-up truck by waiting until the last second before hitting the accelerator
- Driver moves out of the way in death-defying manoeuvre
- TOW missile locked on to white-pick up truck in what appears to be Syria
- If vehicle moved too soon the missile would have changed direction
- Drive appears to be Hezbollah fighter due to yellow flag nearby
This is the moment a driver dodged an incoming missile heading straight for his pick-up truck by waiting until the last moment before hitting the accelerator.
The motorist displayed nerves of steel as the rocket flew straight for his vehicle, which lurched out of the way as the projectile shot past and exploded in a building behind.
It is alleged to have taken place in Syria and the person in the white pick-up truck is a Hezbollah fighter, due to a yellow flag seen near the car.
The missile is fired from what appears to be a hillside in Syria into a nearby town
The TOW missile is locked on to the white pick-up truck by the shooter, who must keep it within his sights
The missile is guided by the shooter so would have changed direction if the vehicle moved too soon
Nerves of steel: The driver moves the truck out of the way at the last possible moment
The missile then zooms past the vehicle and detonates in a nearby building
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The tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missile was launched from quite some distance away and is seen heading towards its target for 24 seconds before the last-gasp manoeuvre.
It appears to be fired from a hillside while a voice can be heard off camera in an apparent radio transmission as the missile heads towards the town.
The driver's actions are made all the more impressive because if they had moved too early, the missile would have simply changed course and followed the vehicle.
By waiting until the last minute the driver ensured the missile would not have time to change direction before its impact with the building.
Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based militant organisation that is pro-Assad and has been fighting for the Syrian government in the Syrian Civil War since 2013.
It is unknown who fired the missile as it could have been one of several opponents including ISIS, the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front or Jaish al-Fatah.
TOW missiles are capable of destroying tanks and are widely used throughout the world. The shooter guides the projectile by keeping the target within their sites until it impacts.
They were first produced in 1970 and developed by American aerospace firm Hughes Aircraft in the 1960s. The weapons were first used by the US Army in South Vietnam in 1972.
NINE CHILDREN KILLED AND 20 INJURED IN ISIS MORTAR ATTACK IN SYRIA
An Islamic State mortar attack on a school has killed nine students and injured another 20 in an attack in north east Syria.
The shells hit the Harabesh primary school for girls in a government-held part of Deir el-Zour - a city currently divided between ISIS and Syrian government forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported nine female students were killed and around 20 injured when the mortar shells hit several parts of the school.
Yesterday several people were wounded by rocket fire on a regime-controlled neighbourhood of Aleppo. File image used
While Syrian television blamed 'terrorists' - the term the government uses for all armed groups fighting president Bashar al-Assad, the Observatory said ISIS was responsible.
It added the number of dead was likely to rise and said dozens of people had been killed and wounded in months in heavy shelling of Deir al-Zor.
Schools have frequently been a target of violence in Syria - last week intense air and missile strikes on a school district and other areas in insurgent-held Damascus suburbs killed dozens.
On the same day, state media said mortar attacks targeting residential neighbourhoods of Damascus had killed three and wounded at least 30 people, most of them students.
It comes just a day after reports emerged of rocket and mortar fire into several regime-controlled areas of Syria, killing six civilians.
SANA state news agency reported: 'Terrorists who call themselves Jaish al-Islam [Army of Islam] this morning fired a mortar round into the residential district of Barzeh [north Damascus], killing one civilian and wounding nine people.'
Rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad's regime often shell the capital from the suburb of Eastern Ghouta.
An Islamic State mortar attack on a school has killed nine students and injured another 20 in Deir el-Zour
SANA also said that in second city Aleppo in the north, 'rockets fired by terrorists hit a residential district, killing three girls and wounding another two'. The Observatory said the three dead were 'sisters aged between 16 and 19'.
The Observatory, which has an extensive network of informants inside Syria, also said several people were wounded by rocket fire on the regime-controlled Aleppo neighbourhood of Hamdaniyeh.
Syria's former economic powerhouse has been ravaged by war since 2012. It is split between the government-held west and insurgent-controlled east.
Aleppo province itself is almost entirely under the control of Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, jihadist forces allied to it and the Islamic State jihadist group.
More than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict broke out nearly five years ago, and millions more have been displaced.
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