<br /> <p>Iraqi Shia militia, known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), said on July 2 that they had launched an operation to fortify the border with Syria west of Mosul in order to prevent the return of Islamic State (IS) militants into Iraq.</p><p>The organization shared footage on its official YouTube account described as showing its engineering unit using an excavator to create a barrier of soil along the border. A man speaking to camera, and said to be the unit’s commander, says the operation aimed to prevent IS returning to Iraqi territory.</p><p>The PMU also shared a statement on their official website</a> saying: “The purpose of establishing these security fortifications is to strengthen the defense lines of our forces and to prevent the infiltration of ISIS.”</p><p>Anwar Hamid Nayef, a government spokesman for Iraq’s Anbar province, said on July 2 that an operation to erect a “barbed wire security fence with surveillance towers” along the border with Syria had begun ten days earlier, according to the Iraqi-Kurdish news outlet NRT</a>.</p><p>The Iraqi government declared Iraq to be completely free of IS last December</a>. Credit: Media Office for the PMU via Storyful</p><br />
