Despite the council member’s optimism, there are still plenty of dangers on the road to and from Turaibil. Military on the road are frequently attacked by the IS group, who use the Anbar desert as a hiding place. They usually push the defeated extremists back but often not without loss of life and equipment.
The commercial traffic could form convoys and be escorted by security forces but it’s not a very practical solution, says the mayor of the Rutba district, Imad al-Dulaimi. Basically, this would mean that the Iraqi government has to spend money on the convoys – only the Jordanians would make a profit.
“This is not the way we want to re-open this border crossing,” al-Dulaimi insists. “This crossing won’t go back to normal unless all of the destroyed infrastructure is rebuilt and the international highway is fully secured.”
Most truck and car drivers believe that it is still too dangerous to use this road, al-Dulaimi continued. “And using other secondary roads [to get people past the security problems] is only going to cause traffic problems and increase the difficulties as well as risks for tour buses and truckers,” he told NIQASH.
The road connecting Turaibil with Baghdad is long – around 450 kilometres – and it lacks things like restaurants and rest stops, complains Nasser al-Fahdawai, an Anbar bus driver in his 40s. He believes that only scant commercial traffic will use the re-opened border crossing. Passenger vehicles will avoid it, he says, because everyone knows only too well that stretches of the highway are still under the control of the IS group.
“This decision to re-open the crossing is too hasty,” al-Fahdawi concludes. It may be of benefit to businesspeople who used to pay more to have their goods brought in by air but nobody is doing the drivers any favours, he notes.
Comments are closed.