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.
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.
The checkpoint is named after a member of the Shiite-led Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) killed in the war against the Islamic State (IS) in this Sunni-dominant region.
Qaim residents say Kataib Hezbollah and other nonstate armed groups have tightened their grip in the Iraqi-Syrian border area despite measures taken over the past year to reduce the influence of nonstate armed groups across the country.
