ISIL struggling to hold real estate seized earlier

Independent on Sunday:
Iraqi forces have recaptured the refinery town of Baiji and broken the siege of the giant oil refinery nearby, say officials in Baghdad – in the most important success for the Iraqi government since Isis seized a third of Iraq in June.

Isis fighters, after their spectacular victories in Iraq and Syria over the summer, are overstretched as they seek to extend or defend the vast territories they have seized. A Kurdish general, Najat Ali, commanding Peshmerga soldiers in the town of Makhmour, 50 miles north of Baiji, said yesterday that “Isis has big administrative problems in supplying food and ammunition to its forces in the front line”.

Makhmour, a Kurdish town of 12,000 people, lies just to the east of the Tigris River and was briefly captured by Isis, which calls itself Islamic State, in its offensive in August that led to the start of US air strikes. It too is back in Kurdish hands.

A shattered 120mm artillery piece, captured by Isis from the Iraqi army but later destroyed by US bombers, lies abandoned near the town’s main grain silo. Kurds were shocked and frightened at the time by the speed with which Isis columns defeated the Peshmerga in blitzkrieg attacks and came close to capturing the Kurdish capital Irbil, which is only 45 minutes’ drive from Mahkmour.

From the top of a mound defended by a machine-gun post on the outskirts of the town, the Peshmerga watch the Isis front line, which is in a treeline and an abandoned village in the middle distance.
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There is more.

ISIL appears to not be able the logistics of supplying troops need to hold territory.  They don't have the force to space ration needed for such a large undertaking, and their brutal tactics have alienated the people in the area taken.  Christians from a town they took got backing from the Kurds to retake it.  The Iraqis still are not very good, but US air support appears to be grinding away the ISIL advantage.

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