Iraqi Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yar Allah visited a desert region of the country southwest of Najaf and Karbala on March 12. He wanted to show that Iraq has the ability to secure its own desert regions.
The unstated reason for the visit was that the area, according to a Wall Street Journal report in March, had a “secret” Israeli base.
Iraq’s narrative is that the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed militias are now searching in the desert for a base that Iraq says did not exist.
Because of this, Yar Allah conducted field supervision and secured the area of Al-Nukhib. This is a desert town that is basically in the middle of nowhere on Iraq’s Route 22, which goes from Najaf to the Saudi border at Arar.
Iraq’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday said: “In the context of his ongoing field follow-up on various sectors... Yar Allah, on Tuesday, May 12, conducted field oversight of the security measures for Al-Nukhayb Desert within the responsibility sector of the 41st Brigade affiliated with the Karbala Sacred Operations Command, accompanied by his deputy for operations, the commander of ground forces, the director of military intelligence, and the director of the media cell, with the commander of the Karbala Sacred Operations and a number of General Staff officers receiving them.”
Yar Allah inspected a site of an “incident” to review a “criminal event,” the report said, adding that he “issued a series of directives and recommendations to the military units, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the highest levels of readiness and preparedness to confront various security challenges.”
He then “affirmed the inaccuracy of what was circulated in some media outlets regarding the presence of unlicensed forces inside Al-Nukhayb Desert, clarifying that those claims were not based on facts or field evidence, especially in light of the repercussions the region has witnessed related to the regional conflict during the recent period,” the Defense Ministry said.
Iraq is saying that both nothing happened and that something happened
Essentially, Iraq is saying nothing happened, but also that something happened. Iraq’s army is now being told to “defend” the desert and the homeland so that “Iraq will not be a launchpad or arena for aggression against neighboring countries.”
The Iraqi Defense Ministry also denied “claims that Israel had set up a ‘clandestine military outpost’ in a southern Iraq desert, describing the allegation as an exaggerated account of a single engagement that took place in early March,” Rudaw Media Network, a Kurdistan Region-based news channel, reported.
“On March 3, we were alerted to the presence of armed individuals,” said Maj.-Gen. Tahseen al-Khafaji, the Defense Ministry’s director of media and moral guidance, Rudaw reported.
Iraq says it deployed to the area on March 4, and there was an airstrike in which one Iraqi soldier was killed, the report said.
“Khafaji further noted that, while a small foreign force may have briefly established a presence in the area amid the broader regional conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, a follow-up Iraqi mission on March 5 found no evidence of any installation,” it said, adding that Iraq claims “there was no base, no airstrip, nor any sign that any administrative or military work had been conducted there.”
The Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces militias had launched their own operation alongside the army. They sent the 2nd Brigade, which is linked to Badr, an organization that is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
This comes as Badr continues to pressure Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Ali al-Zaidi.
“[Member of Parliament] Shaker Abu Turab Al-Tamimi, from the Badr parliamentary bloc, revealed on Tuesday that disagreements continue within the Coordination Framework forces regarding the distribution of ministries, warning that Prime Minister-designate Ali al-Zaidi will fail to form a government if he does not present his cabinet by next Thursday,” Shafaq News, a Baghdad-based news agency, reported.
The US is pressuring Iraq to disarm Iranian-backed militias. The militias are not going to disarm, and they now appear to be pressuring the incoming prime minister.
“An informed political source revealed on Tuesday that the insistence of some armed factions on refusing to disarm is behind the delay in announcing the government cabinet, while a political researcher attributed the delay in announcing the formation to the disagreements of some blocs over the distribution of ministerial portfolios, suggesting that al-Zaidi might withdraw from the premiership on that basis,” Shafaq reported.
This means that the large hunt in southern Iraq for what Iraq says is a nonexistent secret base may have larger repercussions in Baghdad. Iraq continues to show that it is having a hard time coordinating government formation and its security forces.