THE DESERT ATTACK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 124, 2 July 1941, Page 6

THE DESERT ATTACK

MOVE ON SYRIA IMPORTANCE OF ALEPPO While the main Allied columns are pressing northwards towards Bierut and around Damascus, it is. reported that other units are entering eastern Syria from Iraq. Although these movements from Iraq are not mentioned in the official communique, they would be perfectly natural lines of approach if sufficient forces are available in Iraq. Iraq Avould be of most usic as an air base, if a satisfactory degree of consolidation has been achieved in the Mosul airfields following on the suppression of Rashid Ali's revolt. In the railway from Mosul to Aleppo would also afford an easy way into northern Syria, but it is barred in practice because it rung for over 300 milesi along the Turkish side of the border. That leaves the land routes across the desert. Two main routes exist, the more southerly of which follows the pipeline from Iladitha to Tripoli. Progress along this road would lie difficult, because the path is lit-> tie more than a track: but it is important, in that an advance would cleave Syria into two parts and scpnrate Aleppo in the north from Damascus in the south. All told, there are four tracks across; the desert south of the Euphrates, and if these can be used by motor coaches in peacetime they would almost certainly be available for light motoriscd detachments in war-time. It is, moreover, very unlikely that there would be much opposition, except, at the tiny blockhouses which have been built at more or less regular intervals along the route. Any British motoriscd forco would probably concentrate on the road through Palmyra io tho military headquarters at Horns, where both the railway and the i roads to Tripoli on the coast and Aleppo in the far north would be eul

Euphrates Route. In so far as Aleppo is conccrned, two other lines of approach are aA-ailable, if rapid swoops across the desert are made. The most promising is along the Euphrates River. There is quite a good road from Aleppo tc the Euphrates, then doAvn that riA r er to just beyond Deir-es-Zor, which is only 90 miles from the, Iraq border. Tf these intervening 90 miles of sand can be crossed, a relatively easy military passage opens to Aleppo itself. Thisi is a much more feasible line of adA'ance than the outermost desert track in the eixtreme northwestern top of Syria and thence along the Turkish border. The importance' of the Euphrates road is that it" directly threatens Aleppo, the strategical key of the north and the airport which Avould be the natural landing-place for Germans attempting to invade Syria from the Aegean Islands and Crete. Militarily speaking, Aleppo is to the north Avhat Bierut and Damascus are to the south, and it possesses the added importance of being a potential German base even if the Allies should obtain a firm grip on tho southern Damascus region.