Israeli forces set up a temporary camp in Iraq’s desert during the opening phase of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Iraqi and U.S. officials told The Associated Press, according to reporting published Friday. The disclosure followed a separate report by The Wall Street Journal about a secret Israeli military facility in Iraq’s Nukhaib desert area, which officials in Baghdad said sparked scrutiny of whether a foreign force operated without Iraqi knowledge.
AP reported that the Israeli presence became known after Iraqi army and intelligence officials investigated in early March, including after forces that were sent to check the area came under fire while en route. One Iraqi intelligence official and a senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the force was Israeli. The Israeli military did not comment, and the acting Pentagon press secretary, Joel Valdez, declined to comment.
In describing the camp, U.S. officials told AP that “base” was a loaded term. The U.S. official said the “base is a strong word to describe it” and described it instead as a “temporary staging area or camp to support operations in Iran.” The same officials said the objective included monitoring rocket launches and drone activity conducted by some Iraqi militias.
Iraqi officials, speaking through the defense ministry and army leadership, disputed the characterization of a long-term installation. AP reported that during a visit to the area, Iraqi authorities said their forces found no signs of a base and that any presence had been short. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, the chief of the general staff of the Iraqi army during the visit, said, “We believe it was a small force that came and stayed for no longer than 48 hours.”
The Iraqi defense ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Tahseen al Khafaji told AP that on March 3 the military received information about “a small enemy force in a specific area in the Najaf desert,” and Iraqi forces went to check the site the next day. Khafaji said that within 25 kilometers, the force that went there faced an aerial attack, which led to the martyrdom of one fighter and injured two other fighters. He said the Iraqi force pulled out after coming under attack but returned the next day and found no signs of a base and no forces present, and added that search operations “did not show anything that indicates that the force was stationed there for a long time in that area.”
AP also reported that satellite images from Airbus DS, taken March 8 and analyzed by the AP, appeared to show a human-made track dug out at the site—about 1.5 kilometers long in a straight line in a dried-out lake bed—long enough for takeoffs and landings for warplanes. The site was described as about 45 kilometers from the nearest town, al-Nukhaib, along a road running to the border with Saudi Arabia, an area Iraq officials said was unlikely to draw attention even as airspace in the region was filled with fighter jets from both the U.S. and Israel during weeks of active war with Iran.
The reports land amid a wider escalation after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28 triggered a regional conflict that has pulled Iraq into the crossfire. Iraq hosts a network of Iran-linked militias that have launched attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region and on Israel, and the U.S. and Israeli forces have also struck militia sites in Iraq. In parallel, Iraqi government officials called on both sides to leave the country out of the conflict, and AP said the idea of an Israeli force operating under Iraqi oversight put Iraqi authorities in an embarrassing position.