Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes declared a major victory last month over Islamic State after cutting access to a key supply route in northern Iraq. Yet days later the militants were back in business, underscoring their resilience in the face of defeat. The insurgents found an alternate, partly unpaved, route further south and trucked in gravel and dirt to reinforce it with the help of local workers, truckers and residents told Reuters. The detour takes longer to traverse than Highway 47 and could still wash out in heavy winter rains, they said. But for now it is enough to keep food, fuel, weapons and fighters flowing between Mosul and Raqqa, the group’s main strongholds in Iraq and Syria. The vast battlefield in those two countries, combined with Islamic State’s nimbleness […]