|
Iraq Kurds Dig Trench on Syria Border to Block Militants
[An Nahar] Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is digging a trench along its border with Syria to prevent the infiltration of hard boyz 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 front man for the Kurdish region's peshmerga security ministry, told Agence La Belle France Presse. 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 kilometers (10 miles) long, two meters (yards) deep and three meters wide, and is "part of an Iraqi (federal) government strategy" to protecting the country's 600 kilometer border with Syria. "We tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... turbans 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 organization, 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. Posted by: Fred 2014-04-16 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=389421 |