The Luftwaffe was invited into Iraq by Raschid Ali, an attorney and Iraq's leader, who was extremely anti-British. The Germans promised to provide financial and military aid in exchange for unrestricted use of Iraqi airfields. As far as Raschid Ali was concerned, the British had broken the terms of the 1930 treaty. The treaty stated that no British troops were to be in Iraq. The British had sent in troops to garrison Habbaniya without Raschid’s permission. This was interpreted as an Act of War. Legally, the British provoked Raschid by the violation.

Iraq's fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. Raschid asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow Iraq to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting their national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer Iraq got was: "The Jews are yours".

Escalation was rapid, on April 26th, Raschid requested German military assistance. On the 29th, a large Iraqi unit of up to 5,000 men began to surround the small British garrison at Habbaniya. Armed with artillery, the British were being pounded rather well and things began to look dire.The British had garrisoned this outpost as it was the only military installation between Vichy-French Syria and Baghdad. It was also a superbly outfitted airfield but with obsolete aircraft.

When Raschid contacted the Germans, the response was mixed. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ribbentrop, advocated sending a full squadron of bombers and fighters and submitted the plan to Hitler. Hitler simply dragged his feet on the matter. He was more focused on the upcoming attack on Russia. The OKW was in a quandary as any help would be difficult, besides, the Balkan campaign was in full swing. In the desert, Rommel was also pleading for reinforcements in order to crush Wavell.

By May 4th, Hitler had decided to send a token force to assist the Iraqis in order to save face and support the Arabs. The Italians had already sent a squadron of Breda65 fighter bombers. The force sent consisted of 8 He 111, 12 Me 110, one AA section and 3 Ju 52s, commanded by Colonel Junck. These aircraft would arrive via staging areas in Syria and arrive at their base in Mosulon May 15th. On the 16th, the first German sortie raked over the stunned British armed with only obsolete aircraft. The Luftwaffe had arrived in the Middle East, nothing short of a miracle in shipping of aircraft in sections and reassembling them. The British, also, performed a miracle as well, its Habforce division (6,000 men) left Palestine on the 11th beginning its 500 mile march across the hot desert to prevent the German's arrival in Baghdad and Falluja.

At Habbaniya air base, the small British force holding was under siege by an Iraqi force much greater in size and well armed with British weapons. The only positive for the British were its 70 aircraft, which were able to run a gauntlet of AA fire and take off, turn around and bomb the Iraqis. But the price was high, the first day alone, 22 aircraft were shot down. The Iraqi Airforce actually had more modern Italian aircraft that sortied and attacked the airfield on a regular basis. By May 6th, it seemed like the British were on their last leg. Then, oddly, the Iraqis simply left the hills surrounding the airbase! God has saved the British at Habbaniya.

The German presence over Habbaniya was spotty, at best. Their token force was just that, a token show of force and encourage the Iraqis to oppose the British.

As for Raschid Ali el-Gailani, he fled to Iran and was sentenced to death in absence by the British government. In August, he left Iran and travelled to Istanbul, flying to Berlin on the 21st November 1941. Rashid Ali had hoped to form an Arab force to advance from the Caucasus, in Russia, to Iraq and retake Bagdad. The German defeat at Stalingrad made that impossible.

Rashid Ali then moved to Athens and broadcast to the Arab peoples until October 1944. After the war he fled to Damascus in exile. In the late 1950´s he returned for a short while to Baghdad, where he served a short prison sentence. He died in Beirut on 28th August 1965.

The German mission in Iraq failed in its main aim, a total uprising in the Arab world against the British Empire. This was because of two things: the failure to capture
the RAF base at Habbaniya and the poor showing of the Iraqi army there and at Falluja when they counterattacked.
No matter how dedicated the "Arab Brigade" was, without the full support
of the Iraqi army, they could not win in the long-term.