Over the past nearly two decades, the presence of a variety of state and nonstate military and security forces has transformed the Syrian border district of Bukamal and the neighboring Iraqi district of Qa’im. Following the end of the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s caliphate, Iranian-backed militias began to play a major role in the area, turning it into a flashpoint between Iran and its allies on the one side and the United States and Israel on the other. The strain of tensions and the threat of instability are liable to ensure that this heavily securitized part of the border will remain a magnet for conflict for years to come.

Key Turning Points

  • From the late 1960s until 2003, the rivalry between the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the Baath Party resulted in a strong military and bureaucratic presence along the border, reducing cross-border connections.
  • After 2003, the Iraqi-Syrian border became a conduit for jihadi fighters entering Iraq to battle U.S. forces. When Syria’s uprising began in 2011, the flow was reversed as jihadists entered Syria to fight its government, culminating in the Islamic State’s takeover of the area in 2014.
  • After the Islamic State was defeated, Syria and Iraq officially reopened the Qa’im-Bukamal border crossing in early October 2019. However, the foothold that Iranian-backed groups have carved out in the area has made the border a nexus for the projection of Iranian regional influence and a point of confrontation between Tehran and its adversaries.
  • The militarization of the border and the presence of state and nonstate actors have blurred the lines between formal and informal institutions and obscured who ultimately holds authority and governs the area—state institutions or nonstate militias.

Key Findings

  • The mainly Sunni inhabitants of Bukamal and Qa’im have been largely stripped of agency to manage their own affairs—either because they have been displaced or because their areas have become a theater for geopolitical rivalries and the operation of Iranian-backed militias removed from local needs.
  • Given the respective interests and alliances of this multitude of actors and their different ways of engaging with local dynamics and regional rivalries, the Qa’im-Bukamal border area will continue to be volatile and unstable.
  • The tensions between some official Iraqi and Syrian military, security, and civilian institutions and Iranian-backed militias hinder Baghdad and Damascus from restoring the sovereignty and governance capacity they previously had over the area. For better or worse, the lingering presence of Iranian-backed proxies leaves Iraq and Syria with no choice but to accommodate Iran’s interests to some degree.
  • The Qa’im-Bukamal border faces a dilemma. Any weakening of the Iranian-allied militias may provide an opportunity for the Islamic State to revive itself. However, if these militias stay in control of the area, the border will remain a flashpoint for conflict between Iran and its adversaries, particularly the United States and Israel.

Introduction

X-Border Local Research Network

Over the last nearly two decades, the border area between the Syrian district of Bukamal and the Iraqi district of Qa’im has become a highly militarized and volatile area at the heart of the Middle East. It has developed into the focal point of a regional geopolitical rivalry populated by Iranian-backed militias and frequent U.S. and Israeli airstrikes and drone attacks targeting them.

This area has long been a vital border crossing for jihadi militants. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the border region served as a crossing point for jihadists entering Iraq from Syria. When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, the flow of fighters reversed, and jihadists began entering Syria from Iraq. By the summer of 2014, both districts had fallen to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, and the area became one of the group’s strongholds. To form a supranational state across the Iraqi-Syrian border, the Islamic State established its so-called Euphrates Region (Wilayat al-Furat), integrating the districts of Bukamal and Qa’im into a single administrative unit and removing barriers that had separated them for almost a century.

Harith Hasan