Report: Jihadists, weapons are "moving from Iraq to Syria"

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria and arms are also sent across the border to opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, Iraq's deputy interior minister said in an interview with AFP on Saturday.

Adnan al-Assadi also called private security firms "a danger to security," and said that Iraq wants to reduce their number -- which currently stands at 109 companies -- and will not issue additional licences for them.

"We have intelligence information that a number of Iraqi jihadists went to Syria," Assadi said, adding that "weapons smuggling is still ongoing" from Iraq into Syria.

Since March last year, Assad's regime has carried out a bloody crackdown on an uprising in which more than 6,000 people have been killed.

While there are still regular civilian protests that turn deadly in Syria, the focus has now also shifted to armed conflict with regime forces.

"The weapons are transported from Baghdad to Nineveh (province), and the prices of weapons in Mosul (the province's capital) are higher now because they are being sent to the opposition in Syria," Assadi said.

He said that the price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle has risen from between $100 and $200 to between $1,000 and $1,500.

"The weapons are being smuggled from Mosul through the Rabia crossing to Syria, as members of the same families live on both sides of the border," he said.

And "there is some smuggling through a crossing near Abu Kamal," Assadi said, referring to a Syrian city.

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