Iraq closes gaps on Turkey, Syria border
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – The Iraqi Combined Joint Operation Center (CJOC) announced yesterday it closed vacuum points on the Iraqi northern and western border.
Major Colonel Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesperson of the CJOC, said the Iraqi-Syrian border has been secured and the gaps’ points have been closed by scaling up numbers of the security forces and deploying surveillance cameras and observation towers on the border.
“The Iraqi Parliament has agreed to allocate sums of money to build concrete blocks in some dangerous border points,” al-Khafaji said.
A Turkish-Iraqi border gap that links Faysh Khabur in Duhok governorate with Jalbarat area in Nineveh was closed, according to al-Khafaji.
Al-Khafaji noted to the great cooperation between the CJOC and the Peshmerga forces in regard to securing the border.
In a press conference in early February, the CJOC stated “border security guards have been deployed along the border strip in participation with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).”
In the same conference, Lieutenant-General Hamid al-Husseini, commander of the Border Guard Forces, said the Iraqi government allocated 15 million Iraqi Dinar to secure borders with Syria.
In January, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the Prime Minister and the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi armed forces, paid a visit to the Iraqi-Syrian border strip.
Al-Kadhimi instructed other commanders, officers and governors of districts to intensify efforts to implement the plans outlined for border securing.
Al-Kadhimi pledged to hunt the Islamic State (ISIS) members cells inside and outside Iraq by conducting repeated visits to the Iraqi-Syrian border in the wake of Hasakah prison break.