Roj Bash Kurdistan

BasNews, Iraq


A Peshmerga commander has told Iraqi newspaper Azzaman that 905 illegal immigrants have been caught on the Iraq-Syria border over the past month.

The commander explained that the decision to build the 605km channel along Iraq’s border with Syria was taken by the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga. 15 km of the ditch are yet to be dug.

Ali Mousawi, the Iraqi Prime Minister Media Assistant reject claims that the excavation was planned by the Iraqi Government.

The execution of the project did not happen without problems. Tension between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kurdistan Democratic Union (PYD) in Syrian Kurdistan escalated during the excavation.

Piling wrote:

BasNews, Iraq


A Peshmerga commander has told Iraqi newspaper Azzaman that 905 illegal immigrants have been caught on the Iraq-Syria border over the past month.

The commander explained that the decision to build the 605km channel along Iraq’s border with Syria was taken by the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga. 15 km of the ditch are yet to be dug.

Ali Mousawi, the Iraqi Prime Minister Media Assistant reject claims that the excavation was planned by the Iraqi Government.

The execution of the project did not happen without problems. Tension between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kurdistan Democratic Union (PYD) in Syrian Kurdistan escalated during the excavation.

Shirko wrote:This is false information, did you verify this before posting it? I never heard of thus Iraqi news paper, Azzaman.

Iraq Kurds dig trench on Syria border to block militants
by Staff Writers
Arbil, Iraq (AFP) April 15, 2014


Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is digging a trench along its border with Syria to prevent the infiltration of militants and smuggling from the war-racked country, officials say.

"The trench is designed to prevent the infiltration of members of terrorist groups and stop smugglers," Halkurd Mullah Ali, the spokesman for the Kurdish region's peshmerga security ministry, told AFP.

Smugglers "began operating in these areas because the Syrian authorities lost control of them, and these areas became insecure," Ali said.

The trench is 17 kilometres (10 miles) long, two metres (yards) deep and three metres wide, and is "part of an Iraqi (federal) government strategy" to protecting the country's 600 kilometre border with Syria.

"We arrested terrorists and smugglers trying to infiltrate into Kurdistan," said peshmerga Brigadier General Hashem Yeti, adding that there were "requests from the people of the border areas to prevent the infiltration operations, which represents a threat to them."

But the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a powerful Syrian Kurdish organisation, condemned the trench as an attempt to blockade the country's Kurds, and closed the border crossing with Iraqi Kurdistan in protest.

Hundreds of people have been waiting to cross since the border was closed on Saturday.