Fencing out Iraqis

last updated 8 January 2015

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia plans to build a fence along its border with Iraq to keep terrorists from infiltrating its territory. A Saudi think tank said the project would involve a double fence topped with razor wire and studded with sensors. In the first years of the war, U.S. and Iraqi authorities frequently complained that the Saudis were not preventing foreign jihadists from entering Iraq from the south. Now, though, it’s the Saudis who are concerned that Iraqi insurgents or smugglers could come to their country from the north. It’s unclear whether the fence will extend along all 560 miles of the border, which includes vast swathes of empty desert.