Iraqi security authorities announced at the beginning of May that they were digging a trench and employing advanced surveillance technologies along the border with Syria, to tighten security and keep terrorists from entering Iraq.

The US-led coalition, in cooperation with the Iraqi army and the peshmerga, managed to end the Islamic State’s (IS) control over large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2017. Yet IS continuously seeks to infiltrate from Syria. On March 14, Iraqi forces thwarted an infiltration attempt by a terrorist group in Dokji border area in the west of Mount Sinjar. That prompted an Iraqi security source to affirm May 1 that the Iraqi forces coordinate with the Syrian Democratic Forces to track down IS members.

The infiltration of terrorists through the Syrian-Iraqi border is not ostensibly a new problem. In 2009, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Syria of supporting and training terrorists.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Iraq's armed forces spokesman Yahya Rasoul pointed to “the successful coordination between the Iraqi forces and US-led coalition in digging the trench, and ensuring surveillance and reconnaissance operations through new capabilities, such as an unmanned aircraft system,” He stressed that “terrorist outfits continuously seek to cross from and into both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border.”