Аль-Каим: Город на границе Ирака и Сирии

Al Qa'im (القائم, Kurdish: قائیم ) is an Iraqi border town located nearly 400 km (248 mi) northwest of Baghdad near the Syrian border and situated along the Euphrates River, and located in the Al Anbar Governorate. It has a population of about 74,100 and it's the center of the Al Qa'im District. The river water at Al Qa'im carries less salt and mineral, so that it takes significantly less water to sustainably produce crops here than farther downstream, where more gallons of water must be used to avoid salinity. The Al Qa'im border crossing connects Al Qaim to close city Abu Kamal in Syria.

In the early 20th century, there was a khan (caravanserai) and police station in Al Qa'im, but no village. The khan was built in 1907 and was the residence of a local administrator. In 2006 Qa'im, like many cities in the Anbar province, was believed to still be under insurgent dominance. The primary economic activity of Qa'im was smuggling. Damage from previous battles has somewhat depressed the local economy.

Qa'im was under the control of the Islamic State from August 2014 to November 2017. In November 2014, unconfirmed reports indicated IS caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was travelling there and a coalition airstrike left him critically injured. On 7 December 2016, an Iraqi Air Force airstrike at the town left 100 people dead including ISIS militants and civilians. It also injured another 100 people. By November 2017, Al Qa'im was one of the last towns still under the control of the Islamic State. In the 2017 Western Iraq campaign, the Iraqi government advanced south of the city and by the end of October had reached its outskirts. They entered Al Qa'im on 3 November 2017, supported by the Norwegian Telemark Battalion, Danish and American special forces units.

After the eviction of ISIL forces, the Iraqi based and Iranian backed militia Kata'ib Hezbollah (KH), a group under the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and which is closely linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has played an important military and security role on the Iraqi side of the border. This role has continued after the reopening of the border crossing on 30 September 2019. On 25 August 2019 a PMF convoy was hit by two drones near Al Qa'im killing six, including a senior commander. PMF blamed Israel for the attack. The Al Qa'im border crossing between Abu Kamal in Syria and Al Qa'im in Iraq was reopened on 30 September 2019, after eight years of closure due to Syrian Civil War and Iraqi Civil War. On 29 December 2019, the United States bombed headquarters of Kata'ib Hezbollah. The airstrikes targeted three targets in Iraq and two in Syria of Kata'ib Hezbollah, and included weapons depots and command posts according to Reuters and a US military statement. The attack was in retaliation for the attack on the K 1 base two days earlier and other attacks on bases with US forces in Iraq. The earlier attack killed a US contractor and wounded four soldiers. Twenty five KH militiamen were killed in the US airstrikes. On 28 June 2021, U. S. airstrikes targeted Iran backed armed Shi'a militias in Al Qa'im, Iraq and Al Bukamal, Syria, leaving at least four militiamen dead.

Al Qa'im has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh).