CAIRO, November 28. /TASS/. The central government of Iraq is moving to set up two military brigades to protect the border with Iran, the Iraqi portal Shafaq News said on Monday.
"These military brigades will consist of residents of Iraqi Kurdistan, and financial resources from the federal budget will be allocated to set them up," the deputy chairman of the security and defense parliamentary committee, Sagvan Sindi, told the portal. He said the brigades will be deployed at the border of the Kurdish autonomous region with Iran.
Last week, the Security Council of Iraqi government decided to adopt a set of measures to reinforce the protection of the border with two neighboring countries after massive bombing of areas of Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkey and Iran. Iraqi border troops have reinforced 10 outposts along the borders, and additional units are being deployed. Work in the border area is helped by Iraqi intelligence units.
Since the end of September, Iran has been striking Kurdish formations based in Iraq. The IRNA news service reported that the reason for the operation was the attempts of these forces to destabilize the situation in Iran. Turkey conducted air strikes in northern Iraq and Syria the night of November 19 into the morning of November 20. The strikes were inflicted on the bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey has blamed the PKK and Syrian Kurds for the November 13 terrorist attack in Istanbul that killed six people.