Shafaq News<\/p>\n
Since April 8,
\nno confirmed attack has been recorded against US military installations in
\nIraq. Drone activity has continued in Erbil and Al-Sulaymaniyah provinces in
\nthe days following the ceasefire, though these targeted Kurdish security sites
\nand Iranian opposition camps rather than aUS positions directly. <\/p>\n
The ceasefire,
\nreached through Pakistani mediation between Washington and Tehran, has held on that
\nspecific front; however, it has not altered any of the conditions that made
\nthose attacks possible, effective, and, according to the armed factions
\nthemselves, far from over.<\/p>\n
The United
\nStates spent the 40 days between February 28 and April 8 absorbing an
\nunprecedented tempo of drone and missile strikes on its installations,
\ndiplomatic facilities, and contractor personnel across Iraq. It responded with
\nretaliatory airstrikes on Iran-aligned armed factions, groups formally
\nintegrated into the Iraqi state. <\/p>\n
That
\ncalculation -keep Iraq a manageable distraction, not a second front- shaped
\nevery American decision in the country during the conflict. The ceasefire
\npreserved it, for now, but the factions, the vulnerabilities, and the political
\ndysfunction that made the campaign possible are all still in place. And
\nBaghdad\u2019s newly designated prime minister, a political novice with a
\ncomplicated financial biography, has 30 days to form a government capable of
\nnavigating what his predecessors could not.<\/p>\n
The Campaign<\/p>\n
When the United
\nStates and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, targeting
\nmilitary infrastructure and killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iraq and
\nLebanon immediately became secondary theaters of the wider war. The Islamic
\nResistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella grouping of Iran-aligned armed factions
\nthat had already conducted more than 170 attacks on US military assets since
\nOctober 2023, dramatically escalated its operations. Washington\u2019s preference
\nwas clear: keep the Iraqi front contained, manageable, and below the threshold
\nthat would require the kind of direct, sustained military engagement that would
\nconsume attention and resources needed elsewhere.<\/p>\n
That preference
\nwas immediately tested. Between February 28, 2026, and the ceasefire
\nannouncement on April 8, Shafaq News documented over 900 strikes landing on the
\nUS logistical support center at Baghdad International Airport and the US
\nEmbassy compound in Baghdad\u2019s fortified Green Zone, causing damage and
\ntriggering lockdowns. Air defense systems engaged repeatedly over Erbil and
\naround Harir Base in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the American presence is
\nsignificant. The scope of attacks expanded to energy infrastructure in northern
\nIraq, including the Lanaz refinery in Erbil and the Sarsang oil field in Duhok.\n<\/p>\n
In the
\nKurdistan Region alone, about 650 attacks were recorded over those 40 days,
\nwith US diplomatic and military facilities among the primary targets. <\/p>\n
The IRI\u2019s
\ncampaign extracted concessions from the strategic environment without battlefield
\nvictory. It operated on a logic of attrition: not destroying American assets,
\nbut making the cost of maintaining them \u2014in personnel, contractor presence, and
\npolitical capital\u2014 prohibitively high. Nowhere was this logic more precise than
\nat Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih Air Base, formerly known as Balad,
\nlocated roughly 70 kilometers north of Baghdad in Saladin province.<\/p>\n
Balad is the
\noperational hub of Iraq\u2019s American-supplied F-16 fighter fleet, maintained
\nunder a contract worth over $252 million awarded to V2X, a Colorado-based
\ndefense firm formed through the merger of Vectrus and Vertex Aerospace, and
\nrunning through late 2026. A senior security source inside the base told Shafaq
\nNews it sustained approximately 13 drone attacks during the heightened US-Iran
\ntensions. The strikes were aimed not at the aircraft but at the contractors
\nresponsible for maintaining them. The F-16s remain protected in more than 35
\nhardened underground shelters.<\/p>\n
In an interview
\nwith our agency, security expert Abdul Sattar Al-Jubouri said the withdrawal of
\nforeign contractors created a technical vacuum that Iraqi personnel cannot
\nfill, particularly for software systems, advanced avionics, and complex
\ncomponent overhauls. <\/p>\n
Former Iraqi
\nAir Force officer Jamal Al-Azzawi described Iraqi teams at Balad as capable of
\nhandling routine maintenance, but acknowledged the gap left by the contractor
\ndepartures. <\/p>\n
An employee of
\nV2X, speaking anonymously to a British outlet in March, called the base a
\nhigh-value target with more than 200 American nationals on site, and reported
\nthat some Iraqi military and contract employees had been passing sensitive
\noperational information to IRI-affiliated contacts in preparation for further
\nstrikes.<\/p>\n
Renad Mansour,
\na senior research fellow at Chatham House, described the governing dynamic that
\nmakes this possible: the armed factions \u201chave one foot in the state and one
\nfoot out of the state.\u201d That hybrid model, simultaneously part of Iraq\u2019s formal
\nsecurity apparatus and operationally autonomous from it, is precisely what
\nallows IRI-affiliated networks to gather intelligence inside a base nominally
\nunder Iraqi government control.<\/p>\n
The Ain al-Asad
\nAir Base in western Al-Anbar province \u2014historically the larger of the two
\nprincipal American installations in Iraq\u2014 is no longer part of this equation.
\nOn January 18, 2026, the United States completed a full withdrawal from the
\nbase, handing control to the Iraqi army. What remained of the American
\nfootprint before February 28 was concentrated at Erbil Air Base in Iraqi
\nKurdistan and the contractor presence at Balad. The IRI\u2019s campaign targeted
\nboth.<\/p>\n