The News Minute | January 16, 2015 | 4:25 pm IST
The Saudi royal family - in a move almost blocking out Iraq, are building a 600-mile barrier to fortify the northern frontier of their oil-rich kingdom, from the threat of the Islamic State.
According to a report in The Daily Mail, the multi-layered barrier, which plans to stretch across the Saudi-Iraq border from Jordan to Kuwait also includes 78 monitoring towers, eight command centres, 10 mobile surveillance vehicles, 32 rapid-response centres, and three rapid intervention squads
This news follows quick after last week's suicide bombing and gun attack which killed two Saudi border guards and their commanding officer which is speculated as the Islamic State's first attack on the kingdom.
Relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia have already been deeply strained and this is only expected to have negative repercussions.