HIBAPRESS
Iraqi officials have revealed the existence of a second secret Israeli base that was in the Iraqi desert and used in operations against Iran, according to The New York Times, in a report.
The report, quoting regional officials, revealed that Israel spent more than a year preparing a secret site inside Iraq for its operations against Iran, while Iraqi officials later confirmed the existence of a second base.
The Shepherd's Discovery
The first base was discovered near the town of "Al-Nakhib" after a local shepherd was driving a pickup truck, which, according to witnesses, was chased by a helicopter that fired at it repeatedly until it suddenly stopped in the sand.
The shepherd, Awad Al-Shammari, was on a trip to buy necessities, according to his cousin, Amir Al-Shammari, to The New York Times, but the shepherd, instead of returning to his home, found a highly sensitive Israeli military secret hidden in the Iraqi desert. His family believes that this cost him his life.
Al-Shammari eventually revealed how Iraq hosted two secret bases operated by Israel, the enemy state, intermittently for more than a year.
Al-Shammari contacted the regional military command in Iraq to report what he saw: "soldiers, helicopters and tents gathered around a landing strip."
According to senior Iraqi and regional officials, Israel was operating a base there to support its military operations against Iran.
Second Base
The Wall Street Journal had previously talked about the existence of an Israeli site inside Iraq, but Iraqi officials informed The New York Times of the existence of a second undisclosed base also in the western Iraqi desert.
Regional security officials said that the base discovered by Al-Shammari dates back to before the current war between the United States, Israel and Iran, and was used during the 12-day war against Tehran in June 2025.
One regional official added that Israeli forces began preparing to build the temporary base since late 2024, by identifying remote locations that could be used in future conflicts.
According to Iraqi officials, Washington was aware of at least one of the bases, the one discovered by Al-Shammari, which was built since June 2025 and perhaps before that, and this means that Baghdad's other main ally, the United States, hid from Iraq the presence of enemy forces on its territory.
Wael Al-Kaddo, an Iraqi MP who attended a secret parliamentary briefing on the base, said: "This shows a flagrant disregard for Iraqi sovereignty, its government and its forces, as well as the dignity of the Iraqi people."
The American Role
The regional officials added that the role of the United States in Iraqi security was part of Israel's calculations, which led it to believe that it could operate secretly inside Iraq safely.
Two Iraqi security officials said that during the short war last year, as well as in the current conflict, Washington forced Iraq to shut down its radars to protect American aircraft, making Baghdad more dependent on American forces to detect hostile activities.
According to the newspaper, the existence of the bases revealed questions about whether the Iraqi government was aware of this or not, as well as about Iraq's inability to impose full control over its territory.
For his part, Major General Ali Al-Hamdani, commander of the Western Euphrates forces in the Iraqi army, said that the army had suspected the presence of Israelis in the desert for more than a month before the shepherd discovered the site.
He added: "So far, the government remains silent about it."
Lieutenant General Saad Maan, the spokesman for the Iraqi security forces, told The New York Times that Iraq "does not have any information about the locations of any Israeli military bases."
Two regional security officials said that the base revealed by Al-Shammari was used by Israel for air support, refueling and providing medical treatment.
The site was created to reduce the distances that Israeli aircraft need to travel to reach Iran.
It was intended to be only a temporary presence to assist in military operations, such as those that took place during the June 2025 war, which the two officials said proved to be of great benefit during it.
Former American military commanders, Pentagon officials, and American diplomats who served in the region said that it is unreasonable, given the close relations between the American and Israeli armies, that the Central Command was not aware of the Israeli presence in western Iraq.
For weeks, Bedouin gatherings in the western Iraqi desert had been reporting unusual military activity to the regional command, according to Major General Al-Hamdani.
He said that the army decided not to approach, and was content with conducting "reconnaissance monitoring" remotely of what the leaders believed were Israeli forces. He added that they requested information from their American counterparts but did not receive any response.
The Killing of Al-Shammari
On the day Al-Shammari found the foreign forces, he also contacted the local authorities, according to his cousin and Major General Fahim Al-Kureiti, the spokesman for the Karbala Regional Operations Command.
Shortly thereafter, Al-Kureiti and Al-Shammari's family said that the army and his relatives lost contact with him.
His cousin Amir said: "We were told that a burning truck similar to Awad's truck was there, but no one dared to go. When we arrived, we found the car and the body burned."
The family shared pictures of his bloodied body, with his head and fingers blackened, in addition to his burning truck. They buried his body next to the vehicle under a simple gray tombstone.
The day after the shepherd reported, the Iraqi regional command sent a reconnaissance mission, according to Al-Kureiti and Al-Hamdani.
As the units approached the area, they came under fire, according to a statement issued by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command the day after. One soldier was killed and two were injured, and two vehicles were also bombed before the units decided to withdraw.
Senior Iraqi security officials in Baghdad were trying to understand what happened, and two senior officials said that their efforts were repeatedly hampered by senior military leaders who downplayed the importance of the incident.
In public, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced that "foreign" forces had attacked its soldiers, and said that it had filed complaints with the UN Security Council.
In secret, the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah, contacted his counterparts in the American army, according to Al-Hamdani and the two senior Iraqi officials.
Al-Hamdani said: "They confirmed that the force was not American. So we understood that it was Israeli."
Four days after the attack on Iraqi soldiers, on March 8, the Iraqi parliament forced the military leaders to give a secret briefing. MPs who attended the session said that they could not reveal the details. But one of them, Hassan Fadam, told The New York Times that Israel had established at least one other site inside Iraq.
He said: "The site in Al-Nakhib is only the site that was discovered."
A second Iraqi official confirmed the existence of a second base, without specifying its location, contenting himself with saying that it is also in a western desert area.
According to a current and a former Iraqi official, the official protocol requires Washington to inform Baghdad of any activities on Iraqi soil.
This means, according to the officials, that Washington either hid the Israeli activity or informed the Iraqi high command of the operations and kept it secret. But they considered it highly unlikely that the Iraqi leaders had known that the Israeli presence was present before the shepherd revealed it, and that they most likely assumed that the sites were American.
The shepherd's family says that his killing was ignored.
His cousin Amir said: "They are demanding that the government investigate this incident and find out why it happened. They want to respect his rights."
(Sky News)
