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Kurdish Forces Retake Strategic Highway in Iraq's North From ISIS
| New York Times | - |
MOUNT
SINJAR, Iraq - Kurdish forces aided by thousands of lightly armed
Yazidi fighters captured a strategic highway on Thursday in northern
Iraq in the early stages of an offensive to reclaim the town of Sinjar
from the Islamic State, which seized it ...
Turkey
Hasaka
Mosul
Isis
control
Sinjar
Aleppo
Kirkuk
Raqqa
Iraq
Maneuverable Terrain
Homs
Baghdad
Syria
Damascus
The New York Times|Sources: IHS Conflict Monitor (areas of control); Institute for the Study of War (maneuverable terrain)
As the Islamic State captured parts of
Syria and Iraq, it avoided opposing forces and supplied sleeper groups
by driving trucks across the landscape on zigzagging, informal roads.
Satellite images of the area south of Sinjar show a number of local
roads its fighters can use instead of the highway.
SINJAR MOUNTAIN
Mosul
Highway 47
Approx. section of road
targeted for operation
Raqqa
SYRIA
IRAQ
Local roads
The New York Times|Source: NASA/USGS Landsat
The secondary roads are slower, and
they could flood in winter rains, but they will be sufficient to
continue the flow of supplies from Raqqa to Mosul, according to Michael
Knights, a military expert at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy.“The
only way to cut off this area is to establish military outposts within
line of sight of each other, covered by a generous allocation of
airpower,” he said.But
the highway is critical to Kurdish and Iraqi forces, which rely on
heavier fighting vehicles rather than the small bands of trucks used by
the Islamic State. Kurdish fighters are accustomed to the mountainous
terrain north of Sinjar, where driving off-road is impossible.“ISIS
can just drive across the desert, but Kurdish and Iraqi military forces
rely on roads and highways for tanks and other heavy equipment,” said
Patrick Martin, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of War.
There are well over 100,000 miles of unpaved roads weaving in and out of unpopulated areas in Syria and Iraq.
Hasaka
Mosul
Sinjar
Aleppo
Ar Raqqa
Kirkuk
Deir al-Zour
Homs
Syria
Damascus
Baghdad
Iraq
The New York Times|Source: East View Geospatial
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end quote from:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/11/world/middleeast/isis-syria-iraq-supply-route.html
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