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Iran Changes Course of Road to Mediterranean Coast to Avoid U.S. Forces
(Guardian-UK) Martin Chulov - Iran has changed the course of a land corridor that it aims to open to the Mediterranean coast after officials in Tehran feared that a growing U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria had made its original path unviable. The new corridor has been moved 140 miles south, avoiding the Kurdish northeast, to bypass a buildup of U.S. forces assembled to fight Islamic State. The changes have been ordered by Maj.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of Iran's Quds force, and Haidar al-Ameri, leader of the Shia-dominated Popular Mobilization Front in Iraq. The change of route has now pitched Iranian-backed forces into direct combat with ISIS. The newly chosen route to the Mediterranean Sea at Latakia will give Iran a supply line that avoids the heavily patrolled Persian Gulf waters.