Kataib Hezbollah controls access points to key Iraqi border city
Iran-linked armed groups have over the past year tightened and consolidated their grip on a key border area between Iraq and Syria, preventing journalists from entering and local residents from farming their land.
![Members of the Popular Mobilization Units wave the faction flag during a symbolic funeral ceremony in the central holy city of Karbala, on the anniversary of the airstrikes by US planes on several bases belonging to the Hezbollah brigades near al-Qaim, Iraq, Dec. 29, 2020.](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/2021-04/GettyImages-1230344536.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=uHxfTuJh)
AL-OBEIDI, Iraq — Roughly a dozen young men in black, olive green and camouflage mull around below the arches of the Sheikh Haidar checkpoint between the town of al-Obeidi and the border city of Qaim.
Arches curve over both sides of the checkpoint while a large poster of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi security commander from Kataib Hezbollah killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad in January 2020, draws the attention of anyone passing through.