ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government is currently building a concrete wall along its northwestern border with northeast Syria (Rojava), which also separates Syria from the Kurdistan Region, a senior commander from Iraq’s Border Guard told Rudaw.
“In coordination with the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG], we are continuing to erect a wall from the Rabia border [in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province] to Peshkhabur [in the Kurdistan Region’s northern Duhok province],” Brigadier General Haider al-Karkhi, media director for Iraq's Border Guard Command, told Rudaw on Wednesday. He added that the goal is “to control the entire border of the region.”
Iraq shares a 618-kilometer border with Syria. Two years ago, the Iraqi government began constructing a three-meter-high concrete wall along the frontier, including concrete barriers, deep trenches, and watchtowers.
Following the early December collapse of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime - a former ally of Baghdad - Iraq ramped up efforts to secure its border with Syria amid concerns over potential instability and infiltration by Islamic State (ISIS) militants and sleeper cells.
So far, the stretch from the Rabia sub-district in Nineveh to near al-Qaim in the western Anbar province has been completed. The Iraqi government has stated that it does not plan to stop until the entire Syrian border is walled off.
Starting from the Turkish border, the stretch between Peshkhabur in the Kurdistan Region’s northern Duhok province and Rabia spans 40 kilometers along the Iraq-Syria frontier.
“So far, approximately 350 kilometers of concrete wall have been installed along the Syrian border, and we will continue to install more,” Karkhi said.
Following Assad’s collapse, Iraqi authorities also closed key border crossings with Syria. Karkhi added that “a new border monitoring center has been opened in Baghdad, where 975 thermal cameras and border surveillance drones are monitored.”
As of mid-September, the Border Guard Command reported that nearly 99 percent of the border is monitored by surveillance cameras, with drones conducting daily patrols of fortified sections.
These security measures also target illicit cross-border trade, particularly the smuggling of drugs such as Captagon - an issue that predates Assad’s regime collapse.
In addition to its 618 kilometers of border with Syria, Iraq shares 335 kilometers with Turkey and approximately 1,420 kilometers with Iran.