The Iraqi government is tracing the links between the Islamic State of Iraq, which is the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is active in the Syrian revolution against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

In September 2012, the US State Department categorized Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist organization. US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford, who visited Baghdad recently, told Al-Monitor that “Jabhat al-Nusra’s fighters make up less than a third of the fighters opposed to Assad.”

Iraqi politicians from the State of Law Coalition, which heads the government, have been circulating reports stating that Jabhat al-Nusra represents “the Iraqi vein” in the armed groups of the Syrian opposition. Shiite parties are concerned about the effects of al-Qaeda fighters formerly based in Iraq moving to the Syrian arena.

A senior security official from the office of the chief of staff of the Iraqi armed forces told Al-Monitor that the government has finally obtained reliable information regarding the movement of Islamic State of Iraq militants to Syria. These militants, who adhere to the wing close to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the group’s former leader who was killed in 2007, cross the Iraqi-Syrian border near Anbar and Mosul.