This slide in particular interested me. In one of the IED factories, we found a GPS unit that had clearly been used to guide enemy fighters from Western Syria (a whole other topic in and of itself!) through Iraq to Falluja. The GPS had not had its waypoints cleared (which is how we know where they went). How much do you want to bet that those waypoints are mostly safe houses?
Well, they’re burned now, and that route is under surveillance. Best part is, since there are likely multiple routes, and the enemy doesn’t know which route we’ve burned, they’ll likely keep using them. If not, they have to get a whole new set of safe houses – not trivial in the first place, and particularly not now, with the Iraqi and US troops on the offensive throughout the Sunni Triangle. So we can surveil this route (and others we’ve uncovered) and begin to take apart the networks using it in ways that don’t give away what routes we might have discovered.
I always figured there was a rat line to Syria. When our Marine who tried to defect/was kidnapped (I do tend toward the latter explanation though his Moslem faith may have been used to lure him out by making him think he was going out to help his Moslem brethren in some fashion). I assumed that he might provide some help although if he was blindfolded and sent along a trail in reverse his impressions would be of little tactical help. Still, he might have been able to report how many days the trip took and how many places they stopped, for example.
The GPS unit was a great find. I wonder how far into Syria the waypoints went?
