Overview
- Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces said they began a wide desert sweep to impose sovereignty in the southwest after a Wall Street Journal report on a secret base.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel set up a covert site in western Iraq to support air operations and search-and-rescue for downed pilots with U.S. knowledge.
- U.S. officials told the paper Washington was not involved, and the Israeli military has not commented on the report.
- Iraqi commanders said troops sent to check reports of movement near Karbala came under heavy aerial fire that killed one fighter and injured two, then later searches found no foreign forces.
- Open-source satellite analysis pointed to a makeshift strip near the Saudi border, while Iraqi figures split between flat denials and claims of a joint U.S.-Israeli site, leaving the episode unconfirmed.