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Days after Islamic State blitzed through northern Iraq and snatched the city of Mosul in mid-2014, it made a powerful statement of conquest: a bulldozer punched a hole through the sand berm marking the line between Iraq and Syria, an event captured in a polished propaganda video titled Kasr al Hudood Breaking of the Borders.

The demolition, set to the strains of a rousing nasheed, or Islamic chant, and attended by the groups top commanders, underscored Islamic States claim of creating a caliphate based on religion, not national borders.

It also marked the merging of the wars raging through Syria and Iraq and granted the group a sanctuary where it could lick its wounds before mounting fresh attacks on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

That hole in the berm is now blocked, the militants (at least on the Iraqi side) chased away. In their stead, fighters with the Shiite-dominated auxiliary force known as the Hashd al Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, maintain a lonely vigil over this desolate corner of the desert, their weapons trained upon Islamic State positions on the very edge of Syria.

Nabih Bulos / For The Times

Islamic State's one-time crossing between Iraq and Syria, now blocked.

Islamic State's one-time crossing between Iraq and Syria, now blocked. (Nabih Bulos / For The Times)

Their operation to secure the 372-mile border, they say, is an essential component in the fight against the jihadists. Capturing the site that Islamic State bulldozed with such fanfare is an achievement, but it raises other delicate issues: bickering has broken out among the local forces that have united against Islamic State. Also, the presence of the Hashd has irked Washington and its regional allies, who view the Hashd as a stand-in force for Iran.

Last month, the Hashd launched an offensive against Islamic States supply lines west of Mosul and was able to claw back part of the surrounding Nineveh province from Islamic States dwindling caliphate. The Hashd also captured the town of Baaj, a sand-swept outpost 81 miles southwest of Mosul thought to be the hideout of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi. (The Russian military said Friday it was investigating whether an airstrike in the Syrian desert killed Baghdadi in May.)

The Hashd fighters then grabbed more areas near the border, occasionally pursuing the militants into Syrian territory, reports said, before returning to the Iraqi side of the berm.

Along the berm, Hashd positions fluorescent swaths of color from pup tents set up near battered military vehicles broke the endless desert brown every 200 yards or so.

Last week, the fighters had reached the crossing was where Islamic State had filmed its infamous video.The symbolism was not lost on the irregulars, including Abdul Wahad Ibrahim, a blue-eyed 60-year-old Hashd fighter resting on the berm.

The Hashd has broken the banner of Daesh here, and well continue and do the same over the rest of the border, said Ibrahim, using an Arabic acronym, considered perjorative, for Islamic State. This will cut its breathing space.

But the militants are still close by. As the fighters were plugging the hole in the berm, Ibrahim said, Islamic State attacked their bulldozers with a rocket launched from a row of squat, white buildings less than a mile away in Syrian territory.

The Hashd also found signs of Islamic State in the berm itself. Armed with sniper rifles and heavy machine guns, the fighters had also dug holes in the berm to hide from Iraqi helicopters running sorties.

The Hashds arrival was the first time pro-government forces had reached this area since Islamic State overran northern Iraq more than three years ago.

Though the towns and villages now stand abandoned, vestiges of the groups presence could still be seen: A poster asking militants families to renew their information to receive payments; a road sign directing drivers on a dirt road toward Sham, a reference to Syria; colorful graffiti exhorting people to pray.

This area has been part of the headquarters for the Daesh. If we dont clean it up, it will come back, said Yazan Meshan Juboori, the Hashds political advisor, adding that the operation was launched with the blessing of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi.

Once the border is secured, Juboori said, it will be handed over to Iraqs border guards. (The U.S., according to coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon, has trained about 5,000 border guards and will supply them in the coming months with police in a box units, prefabricated outposts that come equipped with weapons and uniforms.)

But, Juboori continued, Hashd fighters will remain in place and support the border guards as long as Syria remains unstable.

That plan has stoked fears of a so-called Shiite crescent extending from Iran to Lebanon. Critics say it would give a powerful boost to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose battered army has relied on Iranian-supported Shiite irregulars, including a number of factions from the Hashd.

This month, the Syrian army and a number of pro-government militias raced from central Syria across the desert and linked up with the Hashd, in what the Syrian armys General Command called a strategic turning point in the war on terror in a statement on Saturday.

This will tighten the noose on what remains of the groupings of Daesh in the area and cuts the supply lines of the organization in more than one direction, the statement said.

But U.S.-backed Kurdish groups on both sides of the border have been less welcoming.

If Hashd forces attempt to enter our areas, our forces will fight them, said Talal Sillo, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in an interview with media outlet Kurdistan24 last month.

The SDF is a U.S.-backed coalition composed of Kurdish and Arab militiamen who dominate northeastern Syria. They are involved in a large-scale offensive on Islamic States de facto Syrian capital, Raqqah.

The Kurds and Iraqi government have long been at odds, but Kurdish fighting forces known as the peshmerga participated in the run-up to the Mosul offensive on the basis of a vague agreement with Baghdad. As the Kurds see it, some of the border areas in northwestern Iraq now controlled by Hashd would someday come under the administration of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, and would presumably be included in any future Kurdish state.

The Hashds advance pushed Kurdish President Massoud Barzani to complain in a meeting with the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, this month that the Hashd shouldnt take control of the area and that its presence goes against the spirit of the agreement the Kurds helped craft in Baghdad.

Nabih Bulos / For The Times

Fighters with the Hashd al Shaabi keep vigil on the berm between Iraq and Syria.

Fighters with the Hashd al Shaabi keep vigil on the berm between Iraq and Syria. (Nabih Bulos / For The Times)

Others question how the Hashd will behave once those local populations uprooted by its offensive return. Many fear the Shiite fighters will engage in sectarian-fueled vengeance against Sunni communities, who were thought to give at least tacit support to Islamic State.

First they remove the military-age males from the environment, and then they set the price for them to come back, said Michael Knights, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Will they have to join the PMUs [Popular Mobilization Units]? Do you get a Sunni Hashd there? Do they have to pay compensation? Do they have to hand over a certain number of their sons for summary judgment?

Left unchecked, the tensions will lead to Islamic State (or its future iteration) to take advantage of the lack of cooperation to rise again, said Renad Mansour, an Iraq expert with the U.K.-based Chatham House think tank.

Now everyone is attacking ISIS on both sides of the border so it cant regroup. But in two or three years? said Mansour in a phone interview.

Even if jihadist forces are driven out of the border region, the underlying beliefs and tensions that gave to Islamic State might still remain and the border will remain a volatile place.

Ive ask all the political leaders in [northern Iraq], Are the roots that led to ISIS gone? Mansour said.

Everyone says they havent even been addressed.

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Iraqi forces have taken back a vital conduit from Islamic State, but questions remain - Los Angeles Times

Iraqi Prime Minister Hayder Abadi had made clear he was very interested in staying out of the growing tensions between the Emirate of Qatar and the other GCC member nations. That, however, appears it was not meant to be, as Vice President Ayad Allawi has insinuated himself into the issue.

Allawi, himself a former prime minister of Iraq, today accused Qatar of having promoted a plan to split Iraq along religious lines, saying they sought the establishment of an independent Sunni Iraq in exchange for a Shiite-dominated region.

That would be bad news for Allawi, a secular Shiite politician whose political support is heavily dependent on Sunni voters who see him as preferable to the more religious candidates aligned with the Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Whether the allegation is true or not is another matter. Qatar, like most of the Gulf Arab states, has been seen trying to limit the Shiite-dominated Iraqi governments influence in the Sunni Arab west, but talk of splitting Iraq outright along these lines never appears to have been a proposal which got very far, let alone one that Qatar ever publicly backed.

While Allawis allegations put him in the same camp with Saudi Arabia et al. in throwing around accusations about Qatar, in this case it appears not to fit neatly into the Saudi narrative, as theyve been trying to paint Qatar as too close to Shiite Iran, and this accusation would have Qatar undermining Irans allies in Baghdad for the sake of the nations Sunni Arab minority.

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Iraq VP Accuses Qatar of Trying to Split Iraq Apart - Antiwar.com

Syrian troops and allied militias met up with Iraqi forces at one crossing point along their shared border Sunday for the first time in years, in a step described as a major achievement by the Syrian military in their fight against the Islamic State group.

The development reported by pro-government media Sunday comes a day after Iraqi forces captured a border crossing point with Syria, al-Waleed, from the IS militants. It was not immediately clear if the Syrian forces reached a new point along their border with Iraq or whether it was the Iraqi forces that had moved northeast of their newly captured point.

The U.S.-led coalition said it was aware of the Iraqi forces' maneuvers along the border, which highlight Baghdad's resolve to fight IS. The maneuvers have no impact on the U.S. presence nearby, a coalition colonel said.

A map by the Central Military Media, allied with the Syrian government, showed Syrian troops at the border with Iraq, northeast of al-Waleed border crossing point with Syria. The Lebanese al-Manar TV linked to Hezbollah, the militia fighting alongside the Syrian government, said Syrian and Iraqi troops linked up at the borders, after the Syrian army seized new territories in its campaign in the Syrian desert.

The Britain-based opposition war monitor group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Iraqi forces had moved northeast of al-Waleed meeting up with pro-Syrian troops for the first time since 2015. The borders had been controlled by IS since.

A Syrian general on the pro-government al-Ikhbariya TV channel said the campaign in recent weeks seized 25,000 square kilometers (9,600 square miles), reaching the Iraqi borders, calling it a "qualitative operation."

"This is the sign of the cooperation between the brotherly Iraqi and Syrian military leadership to secure the shared borders," the unnamed general told the pro-state TV. The general was interviewed in the desert, in an area purported to be across from where the Iraqi forces are based. Syrian officials were recently in Iraq meeting with defense officials there.

The general said the meeting point for Iraqi and Syrian forces is northeast of Tanf, an area where U.S. troops and Syrian opposition fighters are based, and where they were recently encircled by the Iranian-sponsored pro-Syrian forces.

U.S. Col. Joe Scrocca, the coalition's public affairs director, said the decisions of the Iraqi security forces are "theirs alone," but that they advise the U.S.-led coalition of their operations.

"The Iraq Security Force operation at the al-Waleed crossing further demonstrates their resolve to defeat (IS) throughout all of Iraq," Scrocca said in an email to the Associated Press. "This operation has no bearing on Coalition partner training operations at At Tanf."

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said the link between Iraqi and Syrian forces will allow Iraqi fighters, including pro-Iran militias, to move inside Syria, joining the Syrian government's campaign against IS strongholds in eastern Syria, Deir el-Zour. Syrian troops have been advancing against IS positions in the desert for weeks.

The Syrian general told the pro-state TV channel that the new meeting point is only 20 kilometers (12 miles) from al-Mayadeen, an IS stronghold where the group has recently relocated much of its leadership.

Sunday's development comes nearly three weeks after Iraq's paramilitary forces mostly Shiite fighters with close ties to Iran referred to as the Popular Mobilization Forces reached the Syrian border in northeastern Iraq.

In recent months the militants have been coming under increasing pressure in Iraq and Syria where they have lost vast parts of the land they declared as a caliphate in Syria and Iraq in June 2014.

Also on Sunday, aid groups said a convoy delivering aid to a besieged opposition area outside Syria's capital has come under attack, seriously wounding a driver of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and thwarting the first such mission to the area in eight months.

The 37-truck convoy, jointly organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the United Nations, was to deliver food and medicine to 11,000 people in the town of East Harasta.

An aid worker and a local council in east Harasta said the delivery had already been aborted before the convoy came under attack. The aid worker spoke on condition of anonymity because of regulations against speaking publicly to the media.

In a post on its Facebook page, the Local Council of Harasta said that after the convoy arrived at the town's entrance, government officials said the necessary tools to remove sand berms were not available. The local council said the convoy was forced to turn back before coming under fire from a sniper, which it blamed on government troops.

There was no immediate word from the government.

Some 600,000 Syrians live under siege in different areas, mostly trapped by government forces, according to the U.N.

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.

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Syria, Iraq troops link at border for first time in years - ABC News

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, in an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month-old campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

The historic district, and a tiny area to its north, are the only parts of the city still under control of the Islamists. Mosul used to be the Iraqi capital of the group, also known as ISIS.

"Iraqi forces early this morning breach into old Mosul, the final ISIS-held district in the city," Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting Islamic State, said on Twitter. "We are proud to stand with them."

The Iraqi army estimates the number of Islamic State fighters at no more than 300, down from nearly 6,000 in the city when the battle of Mosul started on Oct. 17.

But the Old City is a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways and the fighting is slow, bloody and house-to-house.

About 100,000 civilians are trapped, with little food, water or medical treatment.

"This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul's Old City ... now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement.

"This is the final chapter" of the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, senior commander in Mosul of the elite Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) units spearheading the assault.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the campaign.

Several air strikes during the day hit a medical complex just north of the Old City, alongside the western bank of the Tigris river, a Reuters TV reporter said.

Armoured vehicles were heading toward the front line north of the Old City, and shelling and gunfire could be heard.

The medical complex, housing the two biggest hospitals of Mosul, is still held in part by the militants who are using its buildings as sniper outposts.

Islamic State's security services chief in the Old City, Kanaan Jiyad Abdullah, also known as Abu Amna, was killed in the morning clashes, said Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises several Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs.

A high-ranking Islamic State figure in charge of intelligence in Mosul, Shakir Mahmud Hamad, was captured by the advancing troops in the Old City, Hashimi told Reuters.

The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants reinforced positions in civilian areas to fight back.

Islamic State is using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops.

"The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren't directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in air strikes across the rest of the city," the IRC said.

"We are trying to be very careful, using only light and medium weapons ... to avoid casualties among civilians," CTS divisional commander Major General Maan Saadi told Iraqi state TV.

STREET FIGHTING

Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks, as Iraqi forces could not fully secure exit corridors.

"An estimated 50,000 children are in grave danger as the fighting in Mosul enters what is likely to be its deadliest phase yet," Save the Children warned in a statement.

"We expect thousands of families to escape from the Old City. We have made all preparations to evacuate them from the front lines," army colonel Salam Faraj told Reuters.

Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, the United Nations said on Friday.

"The operation now is about street fighting. Air and artillery strikes will be limited because the area is heavily populated and the buildings fragile," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told al-Hadath TV in Dubai.

Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the side located west of the Tigris, which includes the Old City.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from a mosque in the Old City three years ago and which once covered large areas of Iraq and Syria.

The group is also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is being besieged.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul and Raqqa to field commanders, becoming effectively a fugitive in the border area between Iraq and Syria.

U.S. air strikes have killed several commanders of the group over the past two years, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander, chief propagandist Abu Mohammed al-Adani and Abu Ali al-Anbari, the former top civilian administrator.

About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; Editing by Edmund Blair and Andrew Roche)

PARIS President Emmanuel Macron won a commanding majority in France's parliamentary election on Sunday, pollsters' estimates showed, sweeping aside mainstream parties and securing a powerful mandate to push through his pro-business reforms.

BAMAKO A luxury resort popular with Western expatriates outside Mali's capital Bamako came under attack by gunmen on Sunday, the Security Ministry said.

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Iraqi forces storm Old City of Islamic State-held Mosul, US reports progress - Reuters

CAIRO Qatar promoted a plan to split Iraq along sectarian lines, Iraqi Vice President Iyad Allawi said on Saturday, voicing support for the isolation of Doha by some Arab states.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have broken off ties and imposed sanctions on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and courting regional rival Iran - allegations Doha denies.

Allawi is a secular Shi'ite politician who has some support within Iraq's Sunni community. His position as vice president is largely ceremonial and his views do not reflect those of the government in Baghdad, headed by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Abadi has refused to take sides officially in the Gulf Arab rift but criticized the sanctions imposed on Qatar, saying they hurt the population, not the Qatari government.

The prime minister belongs to the Dawa party, which traditionally has close ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional foe.

"In Iraq, Qatar adopted a project similar to that of Iran; to split Iraq into a Sunni region in exchange for a Shi'ite region," Allawi told a news conference in Cairo. "Unfortunately, some Arab states were silent when it came to Qatar."

Allawi was in Cairo to meet Egyptian leaders including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for discussions about oil and the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.

"It is time we all spoke honestly and made things clear (to the Qataris) so we can reach some results," Allawi said. "After that confrontation, comes reconciliation."

(Reporting by Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Dale Hudson)

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, in an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month-old campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

BEIRUT Iran fired missiles on Sunday into eastern Syria, aiming at the bases of militant groups it holds responsible for attacks in Tehran which left 18 dead last week, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.

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Iraq VP accuses Qatar of having tried to split his country - Reuters