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This satellite image provided by Airbus DS shows what appears to be a human-made track dug out in Iraq’s western Nukhaib desert, some 250 kilometers (155 miles), southwest of the capital, Baghdad, on Sunday, March 8, 2026. (\u00a9 Airbus DS 2026 via AP)<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Airbus DS 2026\/\u00c2\u00a9 Airbus DS 2026 via AP<\/p>\n
BAGHDAD (AP) \u2014 Israeli forces set up a post in the desert in Iraq at the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Iraqi and U.S. officials told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
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The existence of the secret Israeli military facility was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which described it as a base housing special forces and serving as a logistical hub for the Israeli air force.<\/p>\n
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The reports of a secret base stirred up a furor in Iraq. Officials there have said that Iraqi army forces investigated reports of an unauthorized military force in the Nukhaib desert \u2014 a barren area to the southwest of the cities of Karbala and Najaf \u2014 in early March and came under fire while en route to the location.<\/p>\n
Iraqi officials have confirmed the presence of a small, short-term unauthorized force in the desert, but have not said that it was Israeli. However, two Iraqi security and intelligence officials and a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said that it was.<\/p>\n
The U.S. official said of the Israeli outpost that \u201cbase is a strong word to describe it\u201d and described it rather as a \u201ctemporary staging area or camp to support operations in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Iraqi intelligence official said the Israeli force had set up tents in the area and “its objective was to monitor rocket launches and drone activity conducted by some Iraqi militias.\u201d Iraqi authorities believe the force arrived via an airdrop operation but do not know when, he said. They also disputed the description of the military presence as a \u201cbase.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A shepherd noticed the presence of the force and reported it to authorities, officials said.<\/p>\n
Representatives of the Israeli military declined to comment. Acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, triggering a regional war in which Iraq found itself caught in the crossfire. Iraq hosts a network of Iran-linked militias, which launched attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region and on Israel. U.S. and Israeli forces also struck militia sites in Iraq.<\/p>\n
The Iraqi government, meanwhile, called on both sides to leave the country out of the conflict. The idea that an Israeli force could have been conducting military operations under their noses put Iraqi authorities in an embarrassing position.<\/p>\n
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On Tuesday, the Iraqi military sent forces into the desert, to the site of the alleged Israeli outpost, to show journalists that there was no indication of a long-term military presence there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe it was a small force that came and stayed for no longer than 48 hours,\u201d said Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, chief of the general staff of the Iraqi army during the visit.<\/p>\n
Maj. Gen. Tahseen al Khafaji, a spokesperson for the Iraqi defense ministry, told the AP that on March 3, the military received information about \u201ca small enemy force in a specific area in the Najaf desert,\u201d and Iraqi forces went to check the site the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin 25 kilometers, the force which went there faced an aerial attack, which led to the martyrdom of one of our fighters and injured two other fighters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Al Khafaji 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is believed that the force was there for a very short time and it was a very small force,\u201d he said, adding that search operations \u201cdid not show anything that indicates that the force was stationed there for a long time in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Satellite images from Airbus DS taken March 8 and analyzed by the AP appear to show a human-made track dug out at the site, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of the capital, Baghdad. The track runs in a straight line in a dried-out lake bed from northwest to southeast and measures about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile). That\u2019s long enough for takeoffs and landing for warplanes.<\/p>\n
The nearest town, al-Nukhaib, sits about 45 kilometers (27 miles) to the northwest along a road running to the border with Saudi Arabia. That distance is far enough to likely have not drawn too much attention, though Iraq\u2019s skies were filled with fighter jets from both the U.S. and Israel during the weeks of active war with Iran.<\/p>\n
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This satellite image provided by Airbus DS shows what appears to be a human-made track dug out in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[10018,90,737,767,10017,10019,5881,5882,5879,10020],"class_list":{"0":"post-11962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-airbus","8":"tag-abdul-amir-yarallah","9":"tag-airbus","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iraq","12":"tag-iraq-israel-camp-desert-iran","13":"tag-joel-valdez","14":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","15":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","16":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","17":"tag-product-32505-ap-online-middle-east-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}