the common response is it only appeared that way since it's talking from his point of view, this response works to explain away this issue whether the verse explicitly says it appeared or not as it's from his point of view.

this would bring up the question of the sunrise verse which is not from his point of view and is explicitly the point of the sunrise. If they're not scientific errors then these could just have easily have been geographical points like old school terminology to refer to a certain boundary regions in old times.

also the fact is it doesn't matter how many faults you find becuase there are many ways to interpret and hence justify pretty much anything apart from obvious things like earth is 4000 years old (which is why Quran > Bible), now if i stretch it slightly further, the point of sunrise is scientifically speaking is also now the point of the ozone layer so this is literally true now of some places which see the sunrise first in the world and the point of sunset i.e. points where sun sets first was where the gulf of mexico spill happened, it's really not what's written but what one reads.

also the character is not alexander, that view is popular amongst masses but cyrus is more likely although probably just a random king from antiquity in which case it could very likely just be old school terminology.

most abrahamic faith is based on interaction with the divine rather than analysing stories and stuff, these stories like zulqarnain were mainly for the purpose of answers to questions posed by people of older faiths like jewish theologians and others since they knew those stories and were questioning the knowledge of prophet in these matters since they didn't accept him, in that instance if the old jewish scripture said place of sunrise then the Quran would naturally mimic this.

The Quran is cryptic enough to be irrefutible so resistance is futile, Allah is irresistible, i mean come up with some new science discovery and ahaa it's in Quran 1400 years ago 'cos this word means that, find a fault and it was just poetry...hmm yeah.. some verses are clear, some ambiguous to confuse the disbelievers... .so the simplest response to any of these is ambigious.