Israel secretly built a military outpost in the Iraqi desert to support its air campaign against Iran and even launched strikes on Iraqi troops who nearly discovered it, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing US officials familiar with the matter.
The clandestine base was set up shortly before the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran in late February, according to the report. The US was reportedly aware of the installation, which housed Israeli special forces, served as a logistics hub for the Israeli Air Force, and hosted search-and-rescue teams in case Israeli pilots were shot down.
The outpost was nearly exposed in early March after a local shepherd noticed “unusual military activity,” including helicopter flights, and alerted authorities. Iraqi soldiers then moved to investigate the site but came under heavy fire. The attack killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded two others.
Baghdad initially blamed Washington after security forces found evidence that foreign military personnel had been operating in the area.
“It appears there was a certain force on the ground before the strike, supported from the air, operating beyond the capabilities of our units,” Lt. Gen. Qais Al-Muhammadawi, deputy commander of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, told Iraqi state media after the March attack. “This reckless operation was carried out without coordination or approval.”
The base reportedly helped Israel fight a long-range air war against Iran, whose territory lies over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Israel. Israeli aircraft carried out thousands of strikes during the five-week campaign, while the Iraqi desert outpost gave Israeli teams a forward position closer to the battlefield.
The IDF did not comment on the latest report, which adds to growing scrutiny of how Israel’s confrontation with Iran expanded into a broader regional conflict and pulled the US deeper into hostilities.
Former US counterterrorism chief Joe Kent, who resigned in protest in March, has accused Israel of driving Washington into a war despite US intelligence assessments that Tehran was not actively building a nuclear weapon.
Kent claimed that US agencies had warned Iran would retaliate by targeting American bases and attempting to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if attacked. He argued that the Israeli narrative about the Iranian threat ultimately “won the argument” in Washington, forcing the US into the conflict.
Trump administration officials have denied that Israel dragged Washington into the war. US War Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this week that President Donald Trump acted based on “American interests” and his “America First” policy, dismissing the idea that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pulled the US into the conflict as a “false premise.”