Al Qaim: Iraqi soldiers manned the town of Al-Qaim which borders Syria on Friday as they watched for Islamic State group fighters attempting to cross over.
Hundreds, likely more than 1,000, IS fighters have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by US, Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the jihadi group in eastern Syria.
The Iraqi army has deployed more than 20,000 troops to guard the frontier, but militants are slipping across, mostly to the north of the conflict zone, in tunnels or under the cover of night.
Others are entering Iraq disguised as cattle herders.
They are bringing with them currency and light weapons, according to intelligence reports, and digging up money and arms from caches they stashed away when they controlled a vast swath of northern Iraq.
Islamic State fighters facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilising the country's fragile security, US and Iraqi officials say.
Cells operating in four northern provinces are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, and roadside ambushes aimed at intimidating locals and restoring the extortion rackets that financed the group's rise to power six years ago.