A 29-year-old Bedouin man discovered by chance a hidden Israeli base in western Iraq. But, after all, how could a foreign power operate in Iraqi territory without the Government of Baghdad admitting it? For now, no one wants to assume anything. Awad al-Shammari was buried in a shallow grave
Awad al-Shammari left home to buy supplies and never returned.
He was 29 years old, a shepherd, he knew the desert like someone knows an ancient room, and he was crossing the harsh and almost empty region of al-Nukhaib, in western Iraq, on that afternoon of March 3, when he saw what he shouldn’t have seen: soldiers, helicopters, tents and an improvised runway in the middle of the sand.
What seemed like just another routine trip to the nearest village ended up opening one of the most sensitive stories of the underground war between Israel and Iran.
According to an investigation by , the location found by al-Shammari was a secret Israeli base, set up in Iraqi territory to support military operations against Iran. Later, Iraqi authorities confirmed to the American newspaper the existence of a second installation, also hidden in the country’s western desert.
Iraq, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and where public opinion sees the Israeli state as an “enemy”, has thus become the involuntary stage of a foreign military operation conducted by a hostile power.
But the base that the pastor would have discovered was not born with the current war. According to regional authorities interviewed by the New York Times, it began to be prepared by Israel at the end of 2024 and would have been used, first, during the 12-day war against Tehran, in June 2025.
The role was practical and militarily valuable: shortening distances, supporting aircraft, enabling refueling and providing medical care. A temporary installation, made for war and to disappear from the landscape before becoming a political problem. But the desert sometimes returns what the States hide.
Al-Shammari would have contacted the Iraqi regional military command to communicate what he had seen. Shortly afterwards, the family and authorities lost contact with him.
Three Bedouin witnesses said they saw a helicopter chase the pastor’s truck and fire repeatedly until the vehicle stopped in flames. For two days, his family looked for him. They later found the charred van and the burned body. He was buried next to the vehicle, under a simple, shallow grave.
Israel refused to comment on both the existence of the bases and the death of the pastor.
Iran may have “more direct military involvement in Iraq”
The secret, of course, no longer belonged only to the military services. The day after al-Shammari’s warning, Iraqi units approached the area. And they were attacked. One soldier was killed, two were injured and two vehicles were hit before the force retreated.
In public, the Iraqi command spoke of “foreign” forces and announced a complaint to the United Nations Security Council. In private, according to officials cited by the New York Times, the Iraqi military leadership asked the Americans if that force was from the United States. The answer will have been negative. “Then we realized it was Israeli,” said General Ali al-Hamdani, commander of the Western Euphrates Forces.
This question to America makes the story bigger than a clandestine Israeli base. Since the US invasion of 2003, Baghdad has lived as if trapped between Washington and Tehran: it is dependent on the military architecture of the United States and is pressured by the political, religious and armed strength of Iran. The appearance of Israeli posts on Iraqi soil disrupts this already fragile balance. If the Americans knew — and the newspaper’s investigation indicates that at least part of the device was known in Washington — Baghdad was kept in the dark or some of its military commands kept quiet about the information. Both hypotheses are, at the very least, politically dangerous.
Iraqi deputy Waad al-Kadu, who participated in a confidential parliamentary meeting on the case, summed up the outrage in far from neutral terms: he spoke of a “blatant disregard” for Iraqi sovereignty. Another parliamentarian, Hassan Fadaam, said that the al-Nukhaib installation, reported by pastor Awad al-Shammari, was the only one that had been discovered. The other continued to be publicly located.
The official version from Baghdad remains cautious, almost to the point of sounding like denial. A spokesman for the Iraqi security forces said the country had “no information” about the location of Israeli military bases. However, this prudence does not solve the dilemma. On the contrary: it exposes the fragility of a state that may have been unable to detect foreign forces on its territory for months, or unable to tell Iraqis what it knew.
Also for the United States, the revelation is uncomfortable. The US administration has been pressuring Iraq to reduce Iranian influence, disarm pro-Tehran militias and limit its weight in the security apparatus. But if cooperation with Washington comes to be seen in Baghdad as indirect cover for Israeli operations, this effort could backfire on itself. For militias aligned with Iran, history offers a strong argument, as disarming would mean trusting a state that doesn’t even control its own desert, or a North American ally that doesn’t tell everything.
Ramzy Mardini, founder of Geopol Labs, a Middle East-based risk consultancy, put the problem in a nutshell to the New York Times: “Engagement with the United States now risks being framed as alignment with Israel.” In a war where almost everything serves as an argument for the next step, Mardini also warned that if the conflict with Tehran resumes, this story could “provide a pretext for more direct Iranian military involvement in Iraq.”
The al-Nukhaib base will no longer be operational. The status of the second installation remains unknown. However, the questions that a burned-out van brought out of the sand remain: who knew, who authorized it, who was silent and who is responsible for the death of a pastor who, it seems, just took a wrong turn on the right path to the wrong truth.
Awad al-Shammari’s family says the case has been ignored and wants an investigation. For now, there is just a deep grave and a State trying to decide whether to speak or remain silent.
