Iraq Boosts Security on Syrian Border to prevent ISIS infiltration

The Islamic State militant group used the drawdown of U.S. troops from Syria and the Turkish incursion to regroup and strengthen its abilities to plan terror attacks abroad and will likely rebound from the death of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a new internal report from the Defense Department's watchdog said.

There was a report in November that militants from the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia), following their defeat in Syria, were moving across the border into northern Iraq to rebuild their forces there. ISIS is continuing to rebuild in Iraq as well, the report noted.

Iraq is setting up defense structures along the border in the provinces of Nineveh and Anbar.

On Friday, a regional representative of Iraqi Kurdistan, which occupies a part of northern Iraq, said that up to 20,000 IS fighters still remained in Iraq and Syria.

Iraq announced the defeat of IS in late 2017, three years after it overran much of the country. By March 2019, Iraqi forces, backed by US-led coalition airstrikes, recaptured all the territories occupied by the terrorist group in Iraq.