Israeli Secret Bases in Iraq Supported Long-Range Operations and Rescue Missions Against Iran.

Israel reportedly established two covert forward operating sites in Iraq’s western desert to support air and missile operations against Iran. The sites gave the Israeli Air Force a closer staging area for fighters, rescue helicopters, special forces and medical teams, reducing the operational problem created by strikes conducted roughly 1,500 km or more from Israeli territory.

Israel had prepared one of the makeshift sites as early as late 2024 and used it during the June 2025 war against Iran, while Iraqi officials later described a second covert site in the same broad western desert region. The exposed installation housed Israeli special forces and search-and-rescue teams and served as a logistical hub for Israeli air operations toward Iran.

Related topic: Israel Moves to Acquire 2 New Squadrons of U.S. F-35 and F-15 Jets to Strengthen Long-Range Strike Power.

Reported Israeli covert sites in western Iraq gave the Israeli Air Force a forward staging area for long-range operations against Iran, supporting fighter sorties, missile employment, special forces, medical evacuation and combat search-and-rescue missions for downed pilots (Picture source: Israel MoD).

The exposed site was located in the al-Nukhaib desert area, southwest of Najaf and Karbala, and near the road network leading toward Saudi Arabia. Satellite imagery from March 8, 2026, showed a straight man-made track about 1.5 km long in a dried lakebed, roughly 250 km southwest of Baghdad and about 45 km southeast of al-Nukhaib. That distance from populated areas mattered: it reduced visual detection by civilians, gave aircraft room to approach at low altitude, and provided open desert enough for helicopters, light shelters, fuel storage, communications equipment, and casualty-evacuation activity without immediately attracting local traffic.

The runway length is operationally significant: a 1.5 km graded strip is not a conventional hardened airbase, but it is sufficient for many tactical aviation tasks if the surface is usable and aircraft weight is controlled. The C-130J tactical transport aircraft, for example, is designed for austere landing zones and can operate from short dirt runways. That means a 1.5 km strip could support transport aircraft bringing personnel, medical equipment, communications gear, fuel bladders, or ammunition, while helicopters could operate from improvised pads nearby.

The most concrete tactical value of the Iraqi sites was combat search and rescue. Israel’s Unit 669 is the Israeli Air Force’s tactical rescue unit, formed for the recovery of pilots who abandon aircraft over enemy lines and later expanded to wider aerial rescue and missing-person missions. Stationing such teams in western Iraq would cut response time if an F-15I, F-16I, or F-35I pilot ejected during a strike package moving toward Iran. In a downed-pilot scenario, minutes matter because Iranian security forces, border units, militias or local armed groups could reach the crash area before an Israeli helicopter launched from Israel could arrive.

This explains why the sites were not merely symbolic. A rescue force positioned in western Iraq could move east more quickly, refuel helicopters closer to the target area, treat wounded aircrew on site and transfer casualties to a transport aircraft if needed. It also allowed Israel to avoid building every rescue plan around aerial refueling and long-distance helicopter transit from Israeli territory. For aircrews tasked with deep strikes against Iran, the presence of a forward medical and extraction node would have reduced the operational risk of capture and improved commanders’ willingness to assign aircraft to routes closer to Iranian air defense coverage.

The same geography also supported missile employment. Public information has not confirmed which weapons, if any, were stored or fired from the Iraqi sites, and Israel has declined to comment. The defensible operational assessment is narrower: the bases improved Israel’s ability to position aircraft, special forces and support teams closer to missile release areas against Iran. By shortening transit distance, a forward site could increase time on station, reduce tanker demand, allow aircraft to approach from less predictable axes, and provide an emergency diversion location after weapons release.

Israel’s relevant air-launched armament includes several precision strike systems suited to such operations. The SPICE 1000 and SPICE 2000 kits convert 1,000 lb and 2,000 lb warheads into stand-off precision weapons with electro-optical scene-matching guidance, GPS-independent terminal attack, and a stated circular error probable of about three meters. SPICE 1000 has a stand-off range of about 125 km, while SPICE 2000 has a range of about 60 km, with blast-fragmentation or penetration warheads. Those characteristics are relevant against fixed Iranian targets such as air defense radars, hardened aircraft shelters, command posts, missile depots and communications nodes.

For longer-range strikes, Israel also has missiles such as Rampage, ROCKS and Air LORA. Rampage is a 4.7-meter, 580 kg GPS/INS-guided air-to-ground missile with anti-jamming features, intended for precision stand-off attack. ROCKS is an extended-range air-to-surface missile for day, night and all-weather strikes against high-value targets, with terminal guidance options suited to GPS-contested conditions. Air LORA is an air-launched weapon designed to hit targets at supersonic velocity within minutes. These munitions would not require an aircraft to overfly Iran’s most defended areas if launched from favorable headings.

The reported Iraqi sites, therefore, solved several linked problems at once. They gave Israel a rescue buffer for pilots, a logistics node for special operations teams, a medical point for wounded personnel, and a closer support area for missile strikes into Iran. The exposed al-Nukhaib site appears to have included tents, helicopters and a landing strip, while Iraqi troops approaching the area in early March came under fire and one Iraqi soldier was killed. Iraq later filed a complaint over foreign forces, while Israeli and U.S. officials declined public comment or denied direct involvement in the strike, depending on the account.

The strategic gain for Israel was operational depth, not occupation of terrain. Western Iraq offered a temporary position between Israel and Iran where aircraft could be supported, pilots recovered and strike packages made less dependent on long tanker tracks. The strategic cost was exposure: once a shepherd, Awad al-Shammari, reportedly discovered the site and alerted Iraqi authorities, the installation became a sovereignty crisis for Baghdad and a political liability for Washington. In military terms, the episode shows that long-range air campaigns against Iran depend not only on aircraft range or missile performance, but also on concealed logistics, austere runways, medical evacuation, rescue timing and the ability to create temporary access inside politically fragile territory.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.