[citation needed] The Al-Qa'im border crossing connects Al-Qaim to close city Abu Kamal in Syria.

The officially named "Chemical Fertilizer Complex" was originally built by Belgian contractors in January 1976, and by 1982 it was processing phosphate from the nearby Akashat mine.

That year, Iraq decided to build a uranium extraction facility on the site and hired Belgian contractors Mebshem.

During the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's control, a photojournalist embedded to the unit documented the city's events, and his photos were used in Time and Newsweek.

Shortly after the turnover was complete, the enemy launched a sustained offensive throughout the country, attempting to take advantage of the relative inexperience of the new force.

Although reports of enemy casualties are always difficult to quantify, the Marines likely killed 80 insurgents in the town of Husaybah that day, including foreign fighters.

[3] In November 2014, unconfirmed reports indicated IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was travelling there and a coalition airstrike left him critically injured.

[citation needed] On 7 December 2016, an Iraqi Air Force airstrike at the town left 100 people dead including ISIS militants and civilians.

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.

[10] 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.