Karbala commander recounts clash at heart of ‘Israeli base’ claims
Shafaq News- Karbala/ Najaf
Iraq's Karbala Operations commander on Tuesday delivered the first detailed on-record account of the early March clash in the Al-Nukhaib desert linked by international reporting to an alleged covert Israeli site.
Accompanied by Shafaq News, Lieutenant General Ali Al-Hashemi led a field tour through the Janana area, near the administrative boundary with Najaf, alongside the Army Chief of Staff, senior military commanders, Defense Ministry media officials, and a group of journalists. The delegation inspected the incident sites across the desert stretch between Karbala and Najaf.
Al-Hashemi said a report came in on March 2 that an unidentified force had been airlifted into Janana, prompting the Joint Operations Command and the Army Chief of Staff to order an immediate response. A column of around 40 vehicles from Karbala Operations advanced on the location and came under fire on March 4, leading to the death of one soldier and the injury of another. Iraqi forces then established full control of the zone, and a comprehensive search the following day turned up no camps, fixed positions, or irregular formations.
Lieutenant General Saad Maan, head of Iraq's Security Media Cell, separately confirmed that troops had fired on aerial targets during the confrontation. He said the unidentified group's presence lasted only a few hours, rejected accounts of a permanent foreign military base in the western desert, and added that operations are continuing to deter further breaches.
The disclosures follow a Wall Street Journal report last week stating that Israel had established a covert military site in Iraq's western desert linked to its operations against Iran during the regional escalation that began on February 28, and that Iraqi troops approaching the location had come under air strikes. Israeli outlets, including the Jerusalem Post and JFeed, have separately reported on an alleged secret facility inside Iraq used for Iran-related operations, alongside claims of outside intervention to block any investigation.
In earlier statements, the Joint Operations Command has maintained that wide-ranging sweeps across the Karbala and Najaf deserts produced no evidence of foreign troops or equipment after the March incident, while Badr bloc MP Shaker Abu Turab Al-Tamimi told our agency on May 11 that what he described as an "American-Israeli camp" remained active in western Iraq, and that Iraqi forces had not been permitted to approach it.
