BAGHDAD \u2014 Iraq\u2019s Joint Operations Command held an expanded security conference Tuesday evening bringing together senior military, intelligence and Popular Mobilization Forces officials to review operational plans and intelligence coordination in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that Israel had established a secret military site in Iraq\u2019s desert.<\/p>\n
The meeting was chaired by Qais al-Mohammadawi, deputy commander of the Joint Operations Command, and included around 14 senior officials among them the deputy chief of army staff for operations, the commander of the ground forces, and commanders and directors from the defense and interior ministries, the PMF and intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
Participants stressed full control over sectors, activating command-and-control principles, continuing inspections and surveillance, and enhancing intelligence work through immediate information-sharing among security units, according to an Interior Ministry statement.<\/p>\n
The conference follows a series of responses to the WSJ report. On Monday, the Joint Operations Command said there are no unauthorized foreign bases or forces currently on Iraqi territory, while confirming a March 5 clash in which Iraqi forces engaged \u201cunidentified and unauthorized detachments supported by aircraft\u201d in the desert, resulting in one soldier killed, two wounded and a vehicle damaged.<\/p>\n
Iraqi security forces also launched a military operation named \u201cImpose Sovereignty\u201d in the deserts of Najaf and Karbala on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter, that Israel established the site as a logistical hub for air force operations before its war with Iran, and that Israeli forces launched airstrikes to prevent Iraqi troops from reaching it after a shepherd reported unusual helicopter activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAGHDAD \u2014 Iraq\u2019s Joint Operations Command held an expanded security conference Tuesday evening bringing together senior military, intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[592,19229,4589,5396,1281,94,3038,13746,7952,443,596],"class_list":{"0":"post-111435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-and","9":"tag-conference","10":"tag-desert","11":"tag-forces","12":"tag-intelligence","13":"tag-iraq","14":"tag-iraqi","15":"tag-operations","16":"tag-report","17":"tag-security","18":"tag-the"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116566331440040505","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}