US contractors stranded in Iraq under threat of imminent attack: ‘We are sitting ducks’

Hundreds of US contractors are stranded on a major military base near Baghdad, Iraq, with no evacuation plan, while local Iran-backed militants are possibly making plans to attack the base, three sources said.The contractors are employed on the Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih Air Base, formerly Balad Air Base, to support the Iraqi government’s F-16 fighter jet program.“With more than 200 American nationals on the base, the site is considered a high-value target, and the absence of visible preventative measures leaves us feeling exposed and vulnerable,” said one employee of defense contractor V2X on the base, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “All of us are pretty much sitting ducks at the moment.”V2X was approached for comment, but did not respond before publication.Iraqi workers on the base have warned their foreign colleagues Islamic Resistance militants are making plans to attack the base once Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, ends later this week, contract workers said. Some Iraqi military and contract employees on the base have links to the militants and have been passing information to them in preparation for an attack, the sources said.Islamic Resistance is a series of militias and armed groups that are linked to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella network of mostly Shiite militias that is formally part of Iraq’s state security apparatus. The Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, does not have the authority to curb their rise in power, said Renad Mansour, senior research fellow at Chatham House, a London-based independent policy institute.“One of the biggest challenges of the Iraqi state is there has been an increase in these groups gaining senior and significant positions in the security sector in the last few years,” said Mansour. “It’s very much a hybrid model in which they have one foot in the state and one foot out of the state.”The local militants have been gathering information on the populations working on the Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih Air Base, sources said.“They are asking questions about how many foreigners and Americans are on base,” the first V2X employee source said.The contractor employees are now stranded on the base, since the roads outside it are too dangerous to travel on and airspace is closed due to aerial bombardment from drones and missiles. Military forces on the base have been shooting at the drones, which the contract workers hear. However, in the daily security emails from V2X, the company has said there have been no unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying over the base.“People are seeing the UAVs. We hear this shooting every day, sometimes multiple times, and they have the nerve to say there’s not UAV activity in the vicinity of the base,” said the second V2X worker source. “I believe the danger is higher than they’re saying and they’re minimizing it to the United States Government.”The workers interviewed by the Guardian said V2X is not providing them with timely information on safety protocols.“We are not safe. The war is not ending, and the company refused to evacuate us,” said the second V2X source. “They are very poorly equipped. Our lives are in great danger.”Iran-backed militants in Iraq had been exercising restraint since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, under the direction of leaders of both countries in efforts to maintain security and some economic stability, said Mansour.“I think in this latest iteration of this war, that is no longer the case, that these groups are now acting in a more free capacity,” said Mansour. “To them, this is an existential fight, because they rely so heavily on the relationship with Iran, economically, militarily, ideologically and so as Iran has shifted its posture and It’s looking to effectively show chaos in the region as much as possible.”The Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih Air Base has been targeted several times since Israel and the United States launched its attacks on Iran last month. Iran has responded by launching an onslaught of missile attacks on US interests, critical infrastructure and civilian targets around the Persian Gulf. On 17 March, rockets and drones were launched at the US embassy in Baghdad from areas around the city, with three striking inside the embassy compound, triggering a fire.V2X secured a $118m contract from the US air force to support the Iraq F-16 program last June. The Reston, Virginia-headquartered defense firm, was formed in 2022 following the merger of Vectrus and Vertex Aerospace.The Iraqi government has made a threat to V2X that if its personnel are evacuated, it could lose the contract, two sources said.The Guardian has previously reported that V2X employees working on US military bases in Kuwait are lacking adequate bunker facilities and have had their pay reduced, and are receiving limited communication from their employer about safety and evacuation procedures, since the outbreak of the conflict. US military personnel were evacuated from Kuwait in the days leading up to the conflict, yet no such plans were made to evacuate the civilian contractors, employees have said.“Iran is basically fighting a guerrilla warfare on a global scale,” said Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a DC-based think tank. “It has extremely messy this is why it’s so hard for even major military powers like the US, like Israel to ‘win’ this war.”As the conflict progresses, more militant groups in the region are likely to become more active. Additionally, Israel announced this week it had Iran’s national security chief, Ali Larijani, in overnight strikes. If confirmed, this would unleash a fresh escalation of attacks from Iran, said Jacobs. This could include a surge of activity from militant groups that have remained fairly quiet so far.“Hezbollah has been activated in Lebanon. But what about the Houthis in Yemen and some these militias in Iraq have not yet been activated? This is what could be the next phase of escalation,” said Jacobs. “Iran has only begun to use its arsenal of asymmetric warfare, and there’s much more that they can actually do.”