starving isis' east of supplies from syria. isis are just 500 meters potentially in that direction, but also down this road, where also lies raqqa, the caliphate's self-declared capital. this is why this road is vital to the peshmerga. they need to keep it, to separate the isis part of iraq and their part of syria. isis weren't giving up the town, though, without burning it first. once home to thousands of the yizhidis they persecuted, some suspicious of the other group, the sunni arabs there. >> the local arabs are all with isis, this local commander says. throughout the day, one mushroom cloud after another. isis car bombs. some beaten back by a new peshmerga weapon from the west, the milan missile, which stops the ideas bombers in their tracks.