Iran is expected to soon launch an attack on Israel, but not on the United States or its military forces, when Tehran retaliates for an Israeli bombing in Damascus, Syria, that killed several senior Iranian commanders, U.S. officials said Friday and Iranians.
U.S. intelligence analysts and officials believe Iran will strike multiple targets in Israel in the coming days, three U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues they were not authorized to discuss. publicly. Officials have not indicated what form the attack would take, what types of targets would be involved or the precise timing – information that is very closely guarded by senior Iranian officials.
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has military forces in several locations in the Middle East, but Iran is unlikely to target them to avoid inciting direct conflict with the United States, officials say Iranians, who also insisted on remaining anonymous. , and American officials.
During the early months of Israel’s war with Hamas, Iranian-backed militias regularly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. But after a drone strike killed three Americans in Jordan in January, the United States launched retaliatory strikesIran stopped the attacks by its proxies, fearing a more powerful American response. Despite the clashes and hostile rhetoric, Iranian and American leaders have made clear they want to avoid all-out war.
Iran has publicly and repeatedly vowed revenge for the April 1 attack on its embassy in Damascus, which killed three generals and four other officers of its elite Quds Force, the foreign military and intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But analysts say Iranian leaders want to calibrate their response so that it is significant enough to create the impression at home and abroad that Iran is not powerless in the face of the conflict, but not to the point that it could escalate into a full-blown war with Israel or trigger an American attack.
It is unclear how Israel would respond to an Iranian attack on its soil. The Israeli military “continues to closely monitor what is happening in Iran and in different arenas,” Herzi Halevi, Israeli chief of general staff, said in a statement Friday. He added: “Our forces are prepared and ready at any time and for any scenario.”
A Revolutionary Guard strategist, one of the Iranian officials who spoke anonymously, said Iran wanted to take advantage of the growing rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden over Iran’s conduct of the war. Israel against Hamas – and not uniting them in one coalition. hostility towards Iran.
The Biden administration has not only criticized the level of death and destruction caused by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, but it has also expressed fears that increasing clashes across Israel’s northern borders, primarily with Iranian proxies like Hezbollah, escalate into a broader regional war.
Iran believes it can generate international support for a retaliatory strike by focusing attention on the attack on its diplomatic compound, a rare violation of the norms of warfare, and arguing that it cannot was only defending himself, Iranian officials said.
International law generally considers embassies and consulates to be exempt from attack. But Israeli officials have argued that the building they destroyed was diplomatic in name only and was used as a Revolutionary Guard base, as evidenced by high-level commanders who were there. were meeting when they were killed.
Richard Pérez-Peña reports contributed.
