The elderly Iranian man with a grizzled face, carrying a pole from which a green flag honouring revered Imam Hussein flutters, looks startled when the senior US general in Iraq stops for a chat. "Asalam Aleikum," General David Petraeus says to the man, who heads a queue of Iranians at the Zurbatiyah border crossing into Iraq, on their way to Karbala for Ashura.
"You going to Karbala?" the general asks, his words being translated for the man, dressed warmly in polo neck, jacket and black woollen bonnet against the cold whipping in from the nearby snow-capped mountains in Iran. The man nods, not sure why he is being asked this question, or exactly who it is who is asking it.
"Your first time to Karbala?" continues Petraeus, surrounded by soldiers of the Border Transition Team. "No, I have been 10 times before," the man answers through the interpreter. "Mabrouk!" The general offers his congratulations in Arabic before moving down the line to have a word with the handlers of a team of dogs which are happily sniffing through a colourful assortment of bags belonging to the pilgrims.
Then the same question to other pilgrims waiting in a scraggly line of men stacked up alongside a more orderly queue of women dressed mainly in black abayas, some trying to pacify bored, wriggling children. "Your first time to Karbala?" Petraeus asks a man dressed in a brown jacket.
"Yes," answers the bare-headed man, looking out of place in the long column of men bedecked in bonnets -- all black, all woollen. "The Iraqis will be very happy to see you, they need your custom," he answers, before turning to another man who turns out to be a tour operator.
Petraeus, who is big on religious tourism, perks up. "Is business good? I hope it is getting better," he says. "It is very good," answers the tour guide. "I have a big group with me," he adds, pointing to the 20 or so people, a mix of men, women and children.
"Is he a good operator? Is it worth the money?" asks the general smiling. A man in the group first shakes then nods his head and everyone laughs, including the general. "There are even tour operators, this is a good sign," he says later, explaining that religious tourism, along with commercial contracts and academic exchanges will help normalise relations between the still wary neighbours.
"Iraq is seeking with its neighbour to the east -- which will always be its neighbour to the east -- the kind of relationship which any country would want with a neighbour," he tells a small group of reporters accompanying him.
"It wants a constructive productive relationship -- and one that does not include the illegal activities that have been pursued by the Iranian Quds force with respect to training, funding and directing militia extremists."
This then is the main point of Petraeus's visit to this desert outpost, which just two years ago comprised no more than what Border Transition Team commander Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Kilroy describes as "a tent and a table".
Iran, says the general, is continuing to train Iraqi extremists who then come back into their homeland and train others in the use of sophisticated weaponry, such as EFPs (explosively formed penetrators -- lethal roadside bombs which shoot out molten metal slugs which can penetrate US armoured vehicles).
Beefing up outposts like this, which the US military has been doing busily over the past six months, is crucial to trying to halt the flow of weapons, fighters and money from the Islamic republic into Iraq, he says. New technology has been installed to screen trucks, luggage and people -- and further upgrades are on the way.
IS IT HELPING? "All the people, baggage, vehicles and cargo are searched so we do think it has a deterrent effect. And it has made it more difficult for illegal contraband to come into Iraq," Petraeus replies, admitting, though, it is difficult to determine precisely whether the flow has dried up or not.
"One measure is that we have not found anything significant coming through this particular border crossing." But, he acknowledges, not all the 250 cargo trucks that cross on an average day can be searched.
Most are X-rayed and 70 percent are "tunnelled" -- as they cross the border they are made to unload all the goods and the interior of the truck is searched along with the goods.
Up along the road at Nu'Maniyah, a checkpoint run by Georgian soldiers of the Third Brigade, trucks coming from Iran are checked and tunnelled again. Military commander at the checkpoint, Major Shavleg Tabatadze, says they too are finding nothing of significance in their searches.
But he tells Petraeus it is quite conceivable that the insurgents have simply found new routes around the six checkpoints they have set up in the area. At Kut, capital of Wasit, Petraeus holds a meeting with provincial governor Latif Hammad Tarfa.
"You can't say we control the border 100 percent," Tarfa admits. "But I am sure that is true even of the United States," he adds, prompting a burst of laughter from Petraeus. "You've been watching too much television," says the fit, 55-year-old general who spends most of his days in "battlefield" excursions such as this one.
Kilroy meanwhile declines to comment on whether insurgents could be slipping across the border disguised as pilgrims on their way to Karbala to join rituals honouring Imam Hussein. "That is beyond my authority to discuss," he says.
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