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Iraq to help curb threat to Syria from border

02 June 2011 02:35 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Iraq is stepping up efforts to curb weapons smuggling from its territory into Syria as President Basher Assad’s regime struggles with violent demonstrations against its government, a spokesman said Wednesday, APA reports quoting â€œAssociated Pressâ€.
Iraq for years has accused Syria of turning a blind eye to al-Qaida weapons and fighters streaming across its northern border to assist Iraq’s Sunni-led insurgency.
But Syria now says deadly traffic is coming from Iraq.
Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Wednesday that security committees are working on preventing any trafficking of weapons and militants between the two countries.
He acknowledged "infiltrators from both sides" â€” an unusual admission by Baghdad that Iraqi fighters are hurting Syria’s security.
Rights groups say more than 1,000 people have been killed in the crackdown on Syria’s uprising.
Also Wednesday, the police chief of a northern Iraqi city that is rife with ethnic tensions said a Kurdish imam was kidnapped.
Kirkuk Police Chief Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir said officials suspect that Imam Abbas Hadi was taken from his home late Tuesday because his brother is a Kurdish intelligence police sergeant. He denied that Hadi had been arrested by security forces, although some residents say the imam’s mosque had been repeatedly searched.
Tahir, a Kurd, said Hadi is also a vocal supporter of the government in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region â€” an issue that would draw the ire of Arabs in Kirkuk. The city has been a simmering battleground between Kurds and Arabs who each want to claim it â€” and the lucrative oil reserves beneath its soil â€” for their own.