{"id":20949,"date":"2018-11-03T13:23:32","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T13:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20949"},"modified":"2018-11-03T13:23:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T13:23:32","slug":"iraq-reinforces-border-with-syria-fearing-daesh-spillover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20949","title":{"rendered":"Iraq reinforces border with Syria, fearing Daesh spillover"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1398271\/middle-east\" readability=\"57\">\n<p>\nAL-QAIM: Iraqi troops have reinforced their positions along the porous frontier with neighboring war-torn Syria, fearing a spillover from clashes there between Daesh militants and US-backed forces.<br \/>For weeks, Daesh has fought back an assault by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on a key militant-held pocket in Syria\u2019s eastern Deir Ezzor province near the border with Iraq.<br \/>It managed to recapture some territory from the SDF around Hajjin, prompting Baghdad to dispatch reinforcements to its own border, including paramilitary units from the Hashed Al-Shaabi and the army.<br \/>\u201cAll measures have been taken: we have control towers, observation posts, dirt berms and trenches,\u201d Lt. Col. Abbas Mohammad, the head of one border unit, said Thursday.<br \/>\u201cThe SDF\u2019s retreat will not be a threat to Iraq,\u201d he added.<br \/>Soldiers could be seen posted along a sand berm topped by barbed wire and decorated with Iraqi flags, according to an AFP video journalist at the scene.<br \/>Military vehicles patrolled between barracks, and soldiers stationed at observation posts pointed their machine guns toward the Syrian border.<br \/>Helicopters and more armored cars arrived throughout the day.<br \/>According to Iraqi General Qassem Al-Mohammadi, who heads operations in Iraq\u2019s western Anbar province, Daesh fighters were just \u201cfive or six kilometers away, inside Syria.\u201d<br \/>Anbar, a massive desert governorate which extends from the edge of Baghdad west toward the Syrian border, served as a militant bastion before Iraqi forces retook it in late 2017.<br \/>Across the border in Syria, two separate offensives have aimed at ousting Daesh from the frontier with Iraq.<br \/>One has been carried out by Russian-backed Syrian troops, who have cleared Daesh from territory west of the Euphrates River.<br \/>That includes the Albu Kamal border post with Iraq, which was captured last year. Authorities in both Baghdad and Damascus said in mid-October that they hope to revitalize cross-border trade through it as soon as possible.<br \/>The SDF is still fighting Daesh east of the Euphrates around Hajjin, where the US-led coalition estimates around 2,000 militants are based.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AL-QAIM: Iraqi troops have reinforced their positions along the porous frontier with neighboring war-torn Syria, fearing a spillover from clashes there between Daesh militants and US-backed forces.For weeks, Daesh has fought back an assault by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on a key militant-held pocket in Syria\u2019s eastern Deir Ezzor province near the border&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}