Kuwait sends forces to Iraq border amid tensions

Kuwait has deployed military forces to its border with Iraq amid tensions over Baghdad’s handover of a waterway’s sovereignty to Kuwait city.

Four units of Kuwaiti special forces were stationed along the Iraqi frontier on Friday.

Kuwaiti security sources said that the deployment is meant to support border troops in an attempt to avert any measures that would fuel tensions.

Before the deployment, people on the other side of the border had held a demonstration in the southern Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr, calling on the Baghdad government to revise a 2013 agreement to hand over the Khawr Abd Allah waterway to Kuwait.

The Arabic-language al-Watan newspaper reported that the protest was held outside the Umm Qasr governorate office building to denounce the Iraqi cabinet’s recent approval of the deal.

A local official said that thousands of the demonstrators attempted to advance to the border but were asked to divert their path.

Khawr Abd Allah has been in dispute since the early days of modern-day Iraq and Kuwait.