Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
from the News Desk, published on The Cradle, August 2, 2024
The Iraqi News Agency (INA) published a statement by the Ministry of Interior saying that Shammari, “accompanied by the Undersecretary of the Ministry for Federal Security Affairs and the Commander of the Border Forces, arrived in the Al-Waleed district on the Iraqi–Syrian border.” The visit “aims to open the headquarters of the Second Region Border Command,” the statement added.
Iraqi forces have increased security along the country’s border with Syria following the release of hundreds of ISIS fighters from prison camps controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month.
The US-backed SDF holds thousands of ISIS fighters and their family members in around two dozen prison camps in occupied northeast Syria. These include 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them.
The release of ISIS militants has raised fears among northern Iraq’s minority communities. With the help of Iraqi Kurdistan Region leader Masoud Barzani and his security forces, the Peshmerga, ISIS massacred thousands and ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of non-Kurds from Sinjar and the Ninevah Plains in August 2014.
“We, the Shabak, Christian, Yezidi, Kakayi, and Turkmen communities, are afraid of the resurgence of ISIS like the tragedy that occurred in 2014. Now that the SDF has released these fighters, where will they go? They will return to the border of Nineveh province or go to the Kurdistan Region, so the communities living in Nineveh are afraid,” Majed Shabaki, an activist from Mosul, told Kurdistan 24 last week.
“The porous nature of the Iraq–Syria border, coupled with the ongoing conflict in the region, creates ideal conditions for ISIS to regroup and launch attacks,” Ahmad al-Sharifi, a strategic expert, told Shafaq News Agency on 1 August.
