Back and Forth, Wearily, Across the Islamic State Border

Maktab Khalid, Iraq: Around 6 each morning, with the sun already a threat, an officer at a security checkpoint here in northern Iraq rolls back the concertina wire just enough to allow travelers to pass one at a time.

Over the course of each day, thousands will move through this opening, one of only a few official routes across the 650-mile border that now separates two lands: Iraqi Kurdistan and the territory under the control of the extremist militants of the Islamic State.

Much of the traffic is one-way: men, women, entire families - their faces drawn with stress and uncertainty, dragging overstuffed bags and seeking refuge among the Kurds.

But many others move back and forth between the two regions, crossing from one side to the other in the morning to go to work or run errands, then returning at the end of the day. Residents on the Islamic State side might cross to the nearby city of Kirkuk to buy supplies, see a doctor or take a university exam, while some from the Kurdish side might head the other way to visit relatives.

The Islamic State's use of violence as a tool of political control, reportedly including rape and public executions, has sowed panic as the group has advanced. And travelers at the border crossing confirmed that life had become significantly more challenging under the extremists.

But for many, the hardships were not caused by intimidation and violence or the loss of control over their daily lives, but by severe interruptions in the supply of food, power, fuel and employment. A Kurdish embargo on cross-border trade in certain products like cooking fuel, wheat and barley was working, travelers said.

Some said their greatest fear living in militant-held territory was not so much running afoul of the extremists, but the possibility that an Iraqi government offensive might bring the Shiite militias, widely feared among the Sunni population, as well as the sort of indiscriminate bombing that has resulted in numerous civilian casualties in recent weeks.

More than anything, however, the travelers' accounts spoke of resilience in the face of a political, religious and military struggle over which they had no influence.

"We are getting tired," said Thamer Hasan, 35, mid-commute from his home near the town of Hawija, under the militants' control, to Kirkuk University College of Education, where he is an Arabic-language professor. He wore an Oxford shirt and carried a briefcase.

A trip that once took 15 minutes in his own car now took two to five hours by way of a series of short taxi rides and long waits at various checkpoints on both sides of the border.

Food and fuel shortages had compounded the difficulties, Hasan said, as well as a pervasive sense of dread. He had considered moving with his wife and five children to Kirkuk, but apartments were in short supply, and rents were unusually high.

"We have to be honest: Until now, we have not been hurt by them," he said of the Islamic State. "But people are afraid of the future."

Until June, this stretch of road had been open, carrying traffic back and forth between Kirkuk, about 9 miles to the east, and the cities and villages of central and northern Iraq. But as the Islamic State's advance threw the Iraqi national security forces into disarray, the Kurdish military, called the peshmerga, commandeered Kirkuk and the surrounding area - control of which has been long-disputed - and began hardening the redrawn borders of their autonomous region, including the checkpoint at Maktab Khalid.

The militants' proximity is more than notional: two Islamic State flags were visible about half a mile away and, nearby, the silhouettes of the group's fighters shifted behind a bunker of sandbags. The group's checkpoint was just beyond.

"If I had orders, I'd go and take that post tonight," said Captain Dler Jabari, 34, one of the peshmerga officers who oversees the border crossing. He peered toward the distant flags. "It's not very nice to have the enemy there," he murmured.

Both sides have plenty of weapons that could cause damage at that range, yet a certain stasis has persisted despite a few harassing attacks by Islamic State fighters.

But during recent visits to the border crossing, the Kurdish security at times seemed loose: Men were submitted to little more than a cursory frisk around the waist, some bags were not searched. The scene was one of vaguely organized chaos that the security forces seemed barely able to control.

On one morning, an Iraqi police officer assisting the Kurds beat back the crowd with a truncheon and, from time to time, soldiers fired warning shots with their pistols in an attempt to bring order.

For those coming from the Islamic State side, passing through the concertina wire is only the beginning of the crossing. From there they must navigate a trash-strewn expanse of rubble and concrete barriers, earthen berms and guard towers followed by a 20-minute walk - or a paid ride in a taxi or a shuttle bus - along a road through a barren landscape to a parking lot. There they can catch another ride to a major checkpoint outside Kirkuk, where guards scrutinize identification documents and either allow travelers to proceed deeper into Kurdistan or send them back.

"We are both sick," offered Ismael Hussein Ali, 74, explaining why he and his wife, 65, were heading to Dohuk, in northern Kurdistan.

A retired brigadier general who served in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, Ali was wobbly on a wooden cane as he felt his way across a rough patch of gravel and trash. The couple's son Hisam was ahead, pushing his mother in a wheelchair that rocked across the uneven ground, threatening to pitch her out of her seat.

Boys with dirty feet ferried the family's five suitcases in a wheelbarrow. It was still early, but the temperature was already pushing 100 degrees.

Violence had forced the couple from their home in Sinjar, a town in Nineveh province, to Mosul. They had decided to relocate once again in part because the food and fuel shortages had become so challenging, and also because they needed regular medical attention unavailable on the other side.

"I was crying when I left," Ali said of their flight from Sinjar. "I'm still crying."

Scores of people surged around them in both directions: travelers lugging bags, wheelbarrow porters looking for customers, young men carrying empty canisters of cooking gas toward Kirkuk and hauling full ones the other way, farmers from Islamic State territory selling sheep's milk yogurt to grocers from Kirkuk who had met them halfway, taxi drivers offering passage to the next stage of the crossing.

Even though the Ali family had made it this far, the most difficult test was still to come.

Since the arrival of the Islamic State, Kurdish suspicion of outsiders has risen considerably, and Arabs in particular are subjected to extraordinary scrutiny at the border and at checkpoints around the region. Many are turned back.

As the family got into a taxi, Ali turned to a reporter and said cordially, but wearily, "If you'll allow me, I have to begin the battle." (The son later reported that the family had been forced to spend the night at the checkpoint entering Kirkuk, sleeping on the seats of another taxi, before being allowed to pass.)

The bulk of the morning traffic points toward Kirkuk and beyond; the tide shifts in the afternoon as residents of the Islamic State-controlled territory return home after the day's business.

But on a recent morning, Omar, 34, a former police officer, was among dozens traveling against the prevailing current. He was returning from Turkey, where he had applied for asylum, he said.

He feared persecution by the Islamic State because of his previous affiliation with the national security forces. But he was given an interview date in 2018 and, unable to find work in Turkey, he decided to return home to Mosul and rejoin his family. He held a black suitcase in one hand and a laptop bag in the other.

"I am a bit scared, of course, but I don't have any choices," he said, asking that his last name be withheld for fear that the insurgents might locate him more easily.

"I'm ready for anything."