New York Times Discovery Second Israeli Base Western Desert Iraq

A recent report by "The New York Times," based on Iraqi officials, confirmed the existence of two secret Israeli military sites in the Western Desert of Iraq, which were used in 2025 to support military operations against Iran.

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 sources indicated that these logistical bases, which were known to US intelligence and command, provided a back corridor for Israeli warships and commando teams launching toward targets inside the Iranian depth, before returning to be received in these isolated sites away from any Iraqi oversight.

The sources explained that the two sites, which appeared in the form of airstrips and hidden supply points in the arid desert, were marketed internally to Washington and Baghdad as places designated for reconnaissance operations or counter-terrorism support, but leaked intelligence files show their use in direct offensive missions against Iranian facilities.

According to the report, the discovery of this reality sparked great political confusion in Baghdad, as official Iraqi circles debated between denial of this foreign military infrastructure, and implicit recognition of "violations" falling under the framework of security agreements with the United States, which enhanced the debate about state sovereignty and the limits of external interventions.

Discovery of the Shepherd

The first base was discovered near the town of "Nukhaib" after a local shepherd was driving a pickup truck, and according to witnesses, the truck was chased by a helicopter that fired at it repeatedly until it stopped suddenly in the sand.

The shepherd, Awwad al-Shammari, was on a trip to buy supplies according to what his cousin, Amir al-Shammari, told The New York Times, but the shepherd, instead of returning to his home, stumbled upon a highly sensitive Israeli military secret hidden in the Iraqi desert. His family believes that this cost him his life.

Al-Shammari ultimately revealed how Iraq hosted two secret bases operated by Israel, the hostile 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 clustered around a landing strip."

According to senior Iraqi and regional officials, Israel was operating a base there to support its military operations against Iran.

A Second Base

The Wall Street Journal had previously reported on the existence of an Israeli site inside Iraq, but Iraqi officials told The New York Times of the existence of a second undeclared base as well in the western Iraqi desert.

Regional security officials said the base found 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 two bases, the base found by al-Shammari, which was built since June 2025 and perhaps before that, which means that Baghdad's other main ally, the United States, hid from Iraq the presence of hostile forces on its territory.

Wael al-Kaddo, an Iraqi MP who attended a secret parliamentary briefing on the base, said: "This shows a blatant disregard for Iraqi sovereignty, its government, its forces, as well as the dignity of the Iraqi people."

The US Role

The regional officials added that the role of the United States in Iraqi security was part of Israel's calculations that led it to believe 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 US aircraft, making Baghdad more reliant on US forces to detect hostile activities.

According to the newspaper, the existence of the bases revealed questions about whether the Iraqi government was aware of it or not, as well as 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 the army had suspected an Israeli presence in the desert for more than a month before the shepherd discovered the site.

He added: "Until now, the government remains silent about that."

Lieutenant General Saad Maan, spokesman for the Iraqi security forces, told The New York Times that Iraq "does not have any information regarding the locations of any Israeli military bases."

Two regional security officials said the base revealed by al-Shammari was used by Israel for air support, refueling, and providing medical treatment.

The site was established to reduce the distances that Israeli aircraft need to travel to reach Iran.

It was intended to be only a temporary presence to help in military operations, such as those that took place during the June 2025 war, which the two officials said proved to be of great use during it.

Former US military commanders, Pentagon officials, and US diplomats who served in the region said it was inconceivable, given the close ties between the US and Israeli militaries, that the Central Command was not aware of the Israeli presence in western Iraq.

For weeks, Bedouin gatherings in the western Iraqi desert were reporting unusual military activity to the regional command, according to Major General al-Hamdani.

He said the army decided not to approach, and sufficed with conducting remote "reconnaissance monitoring" of what commanders believed were Israeli forces. He added that they requested information from their US counterparts but received no response.

Killing of Al-Shammari

On the day al-Shammari found the foreign forces, he also contacted local authorities, according to his cousin and Major General Fahim al-Kriti, spokesman for the Karbala Regional Operations Command.

Shortly thereafter, al-Kriti and al-Shammari's family said the army and his relatives lost contact with him.

His cousin Amir said: "We were told that a burned truck similar to Awwad's truck was there, but no one dared to go. When we arrived we found the car and the body burned."

The family shared photos of his blood-stained body, with his head and fingers blackened, in addition to his burned 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-Kriti and al-Hamdani.

As the units approached the area, they came under fire, according to a statement issued by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command a day later. A soldier was killed and two were injured, and two vehicles were hit before the units decided to withdraw.

Senior Iraqi security officials in Baghdad were trying to understand what happened, and two senior officials said their efforts were repeatedly hampered by senior military commanders who played down the importance of the incident.

Publicly, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced that "foreign" forces attacked its soldiers, and said it filed complaints with the UN Security Council.

Privately, the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah, contacted his counterparts in the US military, according to al-Hamdani and the two senior Iraqi officials.

Al-Hamdani said: "They confirmed that the force is not American. Therefore we understood that it was Israeli."

Four days after the attack on the Iraqi soldiers, on March 8, the Iraqi Parliament forced military commanders to provide a secret briefing. MPs who attended the session said they could not reveal details. But one of them, Hassan Fadaam, told The New York Times that Israel set up at least another site inside Iraq.

He said: "The site in Nukhaib is only the site that was discovered."

A second Iraqi official confirmed the existence of a second base, without specifying its location, saying only that it was also in a western desert area.

According to a current and a former Iraqi official, the official protocol dictates that Washington inform Baghdad of any activities on Iraqi territory.

This means, according to officials, that Washington either hid the Israeli activity or informed the upper Iraqi leadership of the operations and kept it secret. But they considered it highly unlikely that Iraqi leaders knew the presence was Israeli before the shepherd revealed it, and that they likely assumed the sites were American.

The shepherd's family says his killing was ignored.

His cousin Amir said: "They demand the government investigate this incident and find out why it happened. They want his rights respected."