To stop ISIS infiltration, Iraq builds wall with Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Aiming at hindering Islamic State Organization (ISIS) militants from infiltrating into its territory, Iraq started building a concrete wall along part of its shared border with Syria, an Iraqi military source said on Sunday.
Iraq shares more than 600-kilometer-long border with Syria that stretches from the Rukban area in the south near the Syria-Jordon border and reaches to the town of Faysh Khabur near the Turkey-Syria border.
Now Iraq aims to “put a stop to the infiltration of ISIS members” into its territory, the source added, without specifying how long the wall would eventually run.
In the “first stage” of construction, a wall around “a dozen kilometers long and 3.5 meters high was built in Nineveh province,” in the Sinjar area of northwest Iraq, a senior officer told AFP, on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier on January 25, the Iraqi Cabinet spokesman, Hassan Nadhem said that the government of Iraq will allocate funds to build a concrete wall along border with Syria.
“The government agreed to allocate money to the Interior Ministry to start building a concrete wall,” Hassan Nadhem, told reporters.
Iraq in 2018 said it had begun building a fence along the Syrian border for the same reason.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the wall’s construction was carried out in an area facing the town of Shaddadi, in the south of Syria’s Hasakah governorate.
In January and in the mostly Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakah, ISIS militants mounted an attack on al-Sina’a prison to free their fellow inmates, igniting a 10-day battle that claimed the lives of 121 Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters and 374 members of ISIS.
Many inmates are thought to have escaped, with some crossing to neighboring Turkey or Turkish-held territory in Syria’s north, the Observatory said.
ISIS ran large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” before Baghdad proclaimed victory in late 2017 after a grinding campaign.
Tahsin al-Khafaji, the spokesman for the Iraq’s Joint Operation Command said on Sunday that securing the Iraq-Syria border is done by enhancing their defense line, supplying it with technical equipment and smart surveillance towers.
Iraq continues its border operations, coordinating with the Syrian government regarding the government-held part of the border.
As for the border it shares with the SDF-held areas in Syria, the Iraqi-SDF coordination is done with the US-led Global Coalition in between, according to a statement by al-Khafaji to North Press.
Al-Khafaji told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), “There is an exchange in information and extensive coordination between Iraq and the neighboring countries regarding counter-terrorism.”
The Maj. Gen. pointed out that “terrorist operations that used to take place regularly have now dwindled to the half”