The drone attack on a defense facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan was carried out by Israel to protect its own security interests, not to prevent arms exports to Russia, according to a New York Times report on Sunday.
Saturday’s strike was carried out by the Mossad intelligence agency, according to the newspaper, which cited senior United States intelligence officials.
The report notes that Isfahan is the center of Tehran’s missile industry and is where the Shahab medium-range missile, which has a range capable of hitting Israel, is assembled.
Iran has yet to deliver missiles to Russia despite reports since October that it planned to do so, but Tehran is supplying Shahed-136 suicide drones for use by the Kremlin in its nearly year-long invasion of Ukraine.
The kamikaze drones have been deployed to attack Ukrainian civilian targets and critical infrastructure sites since September. Some reports say the alleged Israeli strike targeted Iran’s drone program.
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A statement from Iran’s defense ministry described three drones being fired at the facility on Saturday, two of which were successfully shot down. A third apparently managed to hit the building, causing “minor damage” to its roof and injuring no one, the ministry said.
A drone is seen in the sky seconds before it fires at buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
London-based opposition Iranian media outlet Iran International quoted eyewitnesses as saying they saw three or four explosions.
State news agency IRNA later described the drones as “bomb-equipped quadcopters”. Quadcopters, which get their name from having four rotors, usually operate from short distances with remote control. Iranian state television later aired footage of debris from the drones, which resembled commercially available quadcopters.
Drones have been used in past attacks in Iran, such as a June 2021 attack on a centrifuge manufacturing facility in Karaj and a February 2022 attack on a military drone storage and production facility in Kermanshah, attacks that were also attributed to of Israel by several media outlets.
US officials said on Sunday that Washington was not behind the strike.
It was the first suspected Israeli strike in Iran since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office, and could mark his continuation of the previous government’s policies that stepped up attacks on Jerusalem in the Islamic Republic.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in an upcoming YouTube video shared with The New York Times that he had decided to “create a price tag” and increase activities in Iran following Tehran’s attempts to “kill Israelis in Cyprus, in Turkey” in 2022 .
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett arrives for a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on October 23, 2022. (Alex Kolomoisky/Pool)
Bennett said that as a result of the plot, the Revolutionary Guard Corps commander behind the attempted attacks had been “eliminated” – a reference to the killing of Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodaei in May last year.
Bennett said he rejected US President Joe Biden’s request that Jerusalem notify Washington before such strikes.
“There are things you don’t want to know ahead of time,” Bennett recalled telling Biden.
A Wall Street Journal report, which also pointed the finger at Israel for the Isfahan strike, noted that the timing of the attack comes as talks between Jerusalem and Washington are aimed at finding new ways to counter Tehran’s nuclear program. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is due to arrive in Israel on Monday.
Iran condemned the attack, calling it “cowardly” and accusing Iran’s enemies of trying to sow insecurity in the Islamic Republic.
“This cowardly act was carried out today as part of the efforts made by the enemies of the Iranian nation in recent months to make the Islamic Republic insecure,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Sunday at a news conference.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian meets with his Qatari counterpart in the capital Tehran on January 29, 2023. (Atta Kenare/AFP)
The US has recently indicated that it will take a more aggressive approach towards Tehran, including regarding its drone delivery program to Russia.
The Biden administration has also signaled that it has given up on reviving a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. Trump then introduced “ maximum pressure” sanctions regime targeting various Iranian sectors, prompting Tehran to respond by expanding its nuclear program in violation of the JCPOA.
Iran’s cooperation with Russia in the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the violent suppression of anti-regime protests that have engulfed Iran since mid-September, have also played a role in Washington’s more assertive approach.
Last week, Israel and the United States launched a large-scale joint exercise in Israel and over the eastern Mediterranean Sea, reportedly aimed at showing adversaries such as Iran that Washington is not too distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s threats to mobilize a large military force.
Netanyahu, who during his last term as prime minister ordered numerous strikes on Iranian targets in Syria and operations on Iranian soil, has openly stated his intention to oppose Tehran’s nuclear ambitions at all costs.
In November, a longtime Netanyahu ally said in an interview that he believed the prime minister would order a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if the United States did not secure a new nuclear deal with Tehran and failed to act on its own in the near future.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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