Iraq Deploys Armored Vehicles to Border with Syria

A destroyed Syrian army helicopter sits on the tarmac the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (AFP)
A destroyed Syrian army helicopter sits on the tarmac the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (AFP)
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Iraq Deploys Armored Vehicles to Border with Syria

A destroyed Syrian army helicopter sits on the tarmac the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (AFP)
A destroyed Syrian army helicopter sits on the tarmac the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (AFP)

Iraq sent armored vehicles on Monday to reinforce its long border with Syria, in a bid to ease concerns after a surprise offensive in the neighboring country by opposition groups.  

The lightning offensive by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied factions saw government forces lose full control of Syria's second city Aleppo for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.  

The attacks have caused unease in Iraq, which still bears the scars of decades of conflict, including the rise of the ISIS group.

"Any infiltration on the Syrian-Iraqi border is absolutely impossible, because of the fortifications and the combat units located there," interior ministry spokesman General Moqdad Miri said on Monday.

The defense ministry said "armoured units of the Iraqi army" were sent to reinforce the border, from the western border town of Al-Qaim to the border with Jordan further south.  

Similar forces were deployed along the border further north in Nineveh province, it said.  

The move comes after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 200 fighters from a pro-Iran Iraqi armed group being sent into Syria to support government forces.  

The Britain-based war monitor, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria, said the militants entered the al-Boukamal region through the border at Al-Qaim in two waves.  

When contacted by AFP, officials from Iraqi armed factions Kataib Hezbollah, Al-Nujaba and Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada denied sending reinforcements.  

"It is still too early to take this type of decision," a Kataib Hezbollah commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.  

ISIS overran large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate".  

The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 by local forces backed by a US-led international military coalition.  

"Iraq has taken solid precautions after the bitter experience of 2014," Qais al-Mohamadawi, Iraq's deputy commander of joint operations, said on Friday.



UN Chief Says Situation in Gaza 'Appalling and Apocalyptic'

Palestinian girl Eman Al-Kholi, whose limb was amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her parents, looks on as she sits in a wheelchair at the European Hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
Palestinian girl Eman Al-Kholi, whose limb was amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her parents, looks on as she sits in a wheelchair at the European Hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
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UN Chief Says Situation in Gaza 'Appalling and Apocalyptic'

Palestinian girl Eman Al-Kholi, whose limb was amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her parents, looks on as she sits in a wheelchair at the European Hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
Palestinian girl Eman Al-Kholi, whose limb was amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her parents, looks on as she sits in a wheelchair at the European Hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh

The UN chief said on Monday the situation in Gaza is "appalling and apocalyptic", as he called for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas.

"The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop,"UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in remarks read out by his deputy at a Cairo conference aimed to accelerate aid to the Gaza Strip.

"We cannot continue to look away," he stressed.

He also revealed cthat Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.

"Gaza now has the highest number of children amputees per capita anywhere in the world —- many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anaesthesia."