positions. one that needs to bear in mind looking around here you get an idea of the devastation. that in fact is a massive crater left in the middle of the road quite possibly by an airstrike also could have been by a suicide car bomb or truck bomb but when you look at the devastation you gain a little bit of appreciation as to how intense the fighting has been but also how americay thmurky t battlefield is, as the artillery is being fired, gun battles unfolding the vast majority of the neighborhoods still have their populations living in them. this is a much more densely populated area, isis was more entrenched in these areas and you have these very narrow ally