Akashat
Transport
It is the terminus of a branchline of the national railway system. It serves a phosphate mine.
The railroad tracks stretch all the way east to Hadithah where they connect in the south to the Persian Gulf and northward eventually to Europe. The phosphate quarry sporadically sends a trainload of raw material to Al Qaim.
Uranium production
The Akashat Mine, located 420 km west of Baghdad, is a uranium ore production facility associated with the Al Qaim site. Iraq has reserves of uranium ore which continue to be mined at Akashat, on the border with Syria. The Al Qaim facility, 100 km to the north east, remains capable of ore refinement. By the mid-1980s Iraq had at least 164 tons of yellowcake, obtained at the Akashat mine and processed in Iraq at Al Qaim, a plant built by a Swiss company.
2013 ambush
On 4 March 2013, as part of both the post-U.S. withdrawal Iraqi insurgency and the Syrian civil war, an ambush took place in Akashat. There was no clear victor, but 51 of the 64 Syrian Army soldiers involved in the ambush were killed, along with 13 Iraqi troops.
See also
References
- ^ Chauhan, Sharad S. (2003). War on Iraq. New Delhi: S. B. Nangia. p. 271. ISBN 81-7648-478-4.