ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The executive order to establish a new Desert Operations Command in Muthanna province near the Saudi border aims to fill a security vacuum and prevent attacks from across the border, an Iraqi lawmaker told Rudaw late Monday.
Sherwan Dubardani, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir that the new force is intended to address security gaps in the vast desert area after an executive order was issued on Sunday to establish a new Desert Operations Command in Muthanna province near the Saudi border.
“The formation of this force is to fill the security vacuum in the Muthanna desert and to prevent any attacks that might be carried out from that border,” Dubardani said.
The move comes amid heightened tensions between Baghdad and Riyadh over attacks allegedly launched from Iraqi territory. On July 28, Saudi Arabia accused Iraqi armed groups of carrying out drone attacks against its energy facilities.
The following day, the United States and Saudi Arabia conducted coordinated airstrikes against Iraq's state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) positions in Kirkuk and six other Iraqi provinces, killing 20 members of the armed groups and wounding 32 others. Five members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also reportedly among those killed.
Saudi Arabia framed the strikes as a response to “reprehensible drone attacks carried out against the Kingdom by Iran-backed militias in Iraq,” while reaffirming its “determination to deter the perpetrators and its right to respond.”
Baghdad has denied that it has received evidence from Riyadh linking Iraqi territory to the attacks.
The new command will be tasked with strengthening security and stability in the desert areas of Muthanna and improving coordination with other Iraqi military units, according to state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Muthanna, Iraq’s second-largest province by area, contains extensive desert territory along the country’s border with Saudi Arabia.
Regarding the US-Saudi strikes on PMF positions, Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the Iraqi Commander-in-Chief, earlier this month told Rudaw’s Malik Mohammed Baghdad had established “technical committees to investigate and verify information from both sides.”
“Despite our conviction that no targeting of neighboring countries originated from the Iraqi side,” Numan said, “these committees are operating in the interest of transparency, assurance, and out of respect for the brotherly ties that bind us with Saudi Arabia, all Gulf nations, and neighboring states.”
He added that Riyadh “has not presented any evidence demonstrating that an aggression against them originated from Iraqi territory.”
The establishment of the Desert Operations Command also comes as Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi seeks to bring all weapons and armed activity under state control.
In early June, Zaidi ordered the formation of a committee to oversee the disengagement of political parties and armed factions from the PMF as part of a broader effort to place paramilitary groups and their weapons under state authority.
Iran-backed factions including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada have rejected calls to disarm, citing the continued presence of US-led coalition forces in Iraq. The coalition is scheduled to complete its withdrawal from Iraq on September 30, a deadline Zaidi has set for completing the disarmament process.
