Baghdad: Iraqi security sources have dismissed recent American media reports about the establishment of an Israeli military base in the Najaf desert, stating that no evidence of Israeli forces’ presence has been detected in the western desert of Iraq. Concurrently, the Iraqi parliament has decided to summon the defense and interior ministers to provide explanations regarding these reports.<\/p>\n
An Iraqi security official told Al Jazeera that during the conflict there was no sign of Israeli forces in the western desert, and it is likely that the forces stationed there were American. According to the source, jamming and warning devices had been monitored in the Wadi Shnan area in western Iraq, but currently no military forces are present there.<\/p>\n
The source further explained that during the conflict, helicopter-borne operations were carried out in the deserts of Najaf and Samawah without prior coordination. The area referred to by the media is a completely desert and remote region, far from residential centers and security installations.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, another security source told Al Hadath network that during the war, the presence of an unidentified military force was detected in the western desert of Iraq, but its identity remained unknown to Iraqi forces. The source emphasized that the United States had warned Iraq not to approach the Najaf desert for security reasons.<\/p>\n
According to this source, Iraqi forces later inspected the area but found no permanent base or military personnel, suggesting that only a temporary helicopter operation might have taken place there.<\/p>\n
Based on these statements, a military presence was observed in the Najaf desert on March 4 last year. During a helicopter-borne operation in the Al-Nukhayb desert, a clash occurred between an unidentified force and Iraqi security forces, resulting in the death of one Iraqi soldier and injuries to two others. It was also reported that an Iraqi shepherd had alerted authorities to suspicious movements in that area earlier that day.<\/p>\n
Following a report by The Wall Street Journal about the establishment of a secret Israeli military center in the Iraqi desert to support airstrikes against Iran, an Iraqi official told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the country’s parliament had summoned the defense and interior ministers to clarify the matter.<\/p>\n
Iraqi officials have so far stressed that no permanent or official base has been identified in the area and that investigations are ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraq denies reports of an Israeli military base in its western desert and summons ministers as investigations continue amid rising regional tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}