Iraq Building Syria Wall to Keep Out IS Fighters

Iraq is building a concrete wall along part of its border with Syria to stop Islamic State group jihadists from infiltrating, an Iraqi military source said Sunday.

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 Al-Shaddadi, in the south of Syria’s Hasakeh province.

IS overran large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” before Baghdad proclaimed victory in late 2017 after a grinding campaign.