New land corridor to move 140 miles south to avoid buildup of US forces assembled in north-east Syria to fight Isis
Iran has changed the course of a land corridor that it aims to carve to the Mediterranean coast after officials in Iraq and Tehran feared a growing US military presence in north-eastern Syria had made its original path unviable.
The new corridor has been moved 140 miles south to avoid a buildup of US forces that has been assembled to fight Islamic State (Isis). It will now use the Isis-occupied town of Mayadin as a hub in eastern Syria, avoiding the Kurdish north-east, which had earlier been mooted by Iranian leaders as a crucial access route.
The changes have been ordered by Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds force, and Haidar al-Ameri, the leader of the Popular Mobilisation Front in Iraq, whose Shia-dominated forces have edged closer to the Iraqi town of Ba’aj, a key link in the planned route and where the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is known to have been based for much of the past three years.
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WNU Editor: I do not think it is the Americans that they are avoiding .... after-all they are probably mingling (or near each other) in Iraq .... but it is the Kurds that they do not want to approach.