Iraqi border guards Colonel Nayif Zaili said on Sunday that militants fired on two posts which lay two kilometers from the Al-Waleed border crossing linking the two countries.

One Iraqi border guard was killed and two others were wounded, he said. A doctor at a nearby hospital confirmed the toll.

Iraq has sought to avoid taking sides between the two sides of the conflict in Syria.

Syria has been struggling with a massive foreign-backed insurgency which has left thousands of people dead.

With many terrorists and militants coming from across Europe and regional Arab countries to fight in Syria, many in the region feel threatened by presence of this many terrorist groups who enjoy support of United States and its western allies.

Europe has seen a rise in the number of its citizens entering Syria as ‘jihadists’.

According to Belgian authorities, dozens of Belgian citizens traveled to Syria to fight alongside armed groups affiliated with Al Qaeda, with most of these men coming from Flanders and Brussels.

On April 24, EU’s anti-terror chief Gilles de Kerchove told the British media that some 500 Europeans were in Syria to fight in the war-torn country.

Kerchove said Britain, Ireland and France were among the EU countries to have the highest numbers of militants in Syria.