On 25 January this battle group of two Home Guard battalions and one German company were attacked by the 1st Battalion of the 6th and the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Krajina Brigade, and were routed with heavy losses. The Partisans seized weaponry including 40 light and 10 heavy machine guns and four mountain and one anti-tank cannons. Gen. Dippold, commander of the 717th Division, reported to Gen. Lüters that on 26 January the 2nd Home Guard Brigade was completely shattered, and that the remnants of the 2nd and 4th battalions were absorbed into 749th Grenadier Regiment. A more ambitious westward attack was launched on 27 January with the reinforced 737th Regiment, which reached Benakovac before being halted by the 6th Krajina Brigade. In the meantime, the 2nd and 5th Krajina Brigades arrived from Kozara as reinforcements, and the 737th Regiment suddenly found itself in a difficult situation. Seeing no alternative, the regiment set up an all-around defense; it remained cut off and under attack until 3 February. Simultaneously, the 717th Division resumed the attack on the main enemy forces towards Ključ and Bosanski Petrovac. The attack was scheduled to begin in the early hours of 28 January, but battalions of the 1st Krajina Brigade succeeded in surprising the Germans during the night with a preventive attack at their starting positions, scattering their units. The next day the Germans launched an attack led by tanks with the intention of collecting weapons and stragglers, but Partisan anti-tank fire destroyed the first tank, killing the commander of the 202nd Tank Battalion, Lt. Col. von Geyso. Attack on Grmeč The Partisan defense line, which had withstood most of the German attacks to that point, was finally compromised by the advance of the 7th SS Division. This unit, with the help of two Italian divisions on the right flank, steadily pushed back the four Partisan brigades, capturing Slunj on 24 January and Rakovica on the 27th. As a result, Bihać came under threat and had to be evacuated, and Germans entered it on 29 January without a fight. This turn of events also compromised the position of the 7th Partisan Division in the Banija region. It was ordered to withdraw and occupy a new line in front of the 7th SS Division, covering the Bihać-Petrovac axis. Thousands of refugees left Banija together with the Partisan units, suffering from air attacks, hunger, frost and disease