Business as usual on Iraq border

AMMAN — Business was as usual on the Jordan-Iraq border on Wednesday, four days after the Iraqi army evacuated posts in the area, as Islamist militants continued their push through northern Iraq.

According to military sources, the situation along Jordan and Iraq’s 180-kilometre shared border remained calm for the fourth straight day on Wednesday.

Security sources along the border reported no “refugee movement” along Iraq’s western frontiers amid reports of a rise in requests for visas at Jordan’s embassy in Baghdad.

“There are no refugees or civilians amassing at the border, nor are they expected to,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press.

Meanwhile, the military remained on “high alert” along the Iraqi border Wednesday as part of a military build-up implemented earlier this week in the wake of the mass pullout of Iraqi government forces across western Iraq. 

On Monday, Interior Minister Hussein Majali revealed that authorities had intensified security presence along its shared border with Iraq as part of “precautionary” measures to ensure national security and prevent a spillover of violence onto Jordanian soil.

The build-up comes as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) continued its push northwards through Iraq, with reports of clashes between Islamist militias and Iraqi government forces in several parts of north Iraq and other areas.

The nearest Iraqi province to Jordan is the western Anbar governorate, which is under the control of Sunni tribal militias and ISIL, whose role, size and power is “overrated” according to strategic experts, who say that what is happening in Iraq is a popular revolution led by tribal fighters frustrated by the policies of the central Shiite-led government in Baghdad.