ISIS's Capital Still Hasn't Been Cut Off - The Daily Beast - 0 views
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ISIS’s Capital Still Hasn’t Been Cut Off
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The distance from the Syrian city of Raqqa to Iraq’s Mosul is about 230 miles as the crow flies, and closer to 280 miles if one drives between the two “capitals” controlled by the self-declared Islamic State
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As The Guardian reported in mid-November: “Although heavily targeted throughout the campaign, ISIS has kept a supply line between Raqqa and Mosul largely open. The highway, in particular, has been a major conduit for trade and the flow of fighters.”
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Hisham Abed (not his real name, for security reasons) says he and his 1980s-era Mercedes truck used to take the circuitous route described above. It took him just about six or seven hours to make the journey to Raqqa, and he liked the road because it was paved and relatively safe.
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Mosul merchant Hassan Thanon (again, a pseudonym) complains that he can no longer communicate with the drivers of trucks carrying his stocks.
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“My truck was one of the first to travel this new route,” Abed said proudly, soon after he arrived back in Mosul after another tiring journey.
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And there are other adaptations: One driver has outfitted his truck like a mobile mechanic’s workshop, carrying tools and spare wheels so he can make repairs if they break down in the desert. He’s charging his colleagues high prices for his services.
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The new route out of Mosul heads south rather than west. Truckers drive on real roads to Tal Abtah, then take a dirt road for nearly 40 miles until they get to the Qayrawan (also known as Balij) subdistrict southwest of Mosul. There’s a paved road here, not far from the Sinjar Mountains, and from there the trucks cross into Syria.
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Transport costs have also increased by about 25 percent, Thanon said. “But we were only able to increase the prices of our goods a little bit because people living in Mosul can barely afford to buy anything anyway.”
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Abed says he saw the results of one airstrike. Planes had hit a convoy of trucks carrying vegetables from Raqqa to Mosul; three trucks on the Syrian side of the border were burned out.