ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi border guards plan to install thermal surveillance cameras along the border with Syria to further bolster its newly installed barbed-wire fences and guard towers. The border infrastructure is designed to stop ISIS remnants from infiltrating from Syria.

“A barbed-wire fence, concrete towers and rotating mobile patrols have been established on the border between Iraq and Syria – a purely self-made effort and at the lowest cost,” Major General Hamid Abdullah Ibrahim, commander of the border guards, said on Saturday, according to Iraqi News Agency.

The Iraqi border guards’ official Facebook page shared a video on Friday showing the new barbed wire fences, concrete towers, and observation posts.

Carried out under the auspices of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the border security project has been allocated a budget of $4 billion.

Iraqi forces are conducting operations on the border and inside Syrian territory to establish full control over the desert region – large areas of which came under ISIS control in 2014.

Rudaw