Foreign Affairs

Here’s What It Looks Like When An American M1 Abrams Scores A Direct Hit On ISIS

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A U.S.-supplied Iraqi Security Force tank took out an Islamic State suicide-borne car bomb, according to a video that surfaced Saturday.

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The video appears to show the Yarmouk district in western Mosul where the Iraqi Security Forces are engaged in a bitter fight with ISIS. Western Mosul’s streets are much narrower than its eastern counterpart, and they occasionally render the use of M1 Abrams tanks or humvees useless. ISIS has exploited this vulnerability by armoring suicide car bombs and driving them indiscriminately towards soldiers.

Suicide-borne vehicles have long been used by Islamic terrorists in Iraq, but ISIS has “industrialized” the production of such weapons. It’s the tactic they use the most, one Iraqi commander told the Los Angeles Times. He elaborated that “there were 23 on the first day of our offensive,” in just his section of the battle for western Mosul.

“These could come as just vehicles that are loaded (with explosives), but more likely now in what you would hear termed ‘Mad Max vehicles’ — lots of steel around them, small slits for the drivers to see, and they’re predominantly suicide attacks,” Australian Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin told reporters. “Sometimes, you just have to run,” an Iraqi commander lamented.

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