Iran said a foreign security service and Kurdish groups were behind a drone attack on an Iranian ammunition depot at the weekend which escalated Middle East tensions.
(Bloomberg) — Iran said a foreign security service and Kurdish groups were behind a drone attack on an Iranian ammunition depot at the weekend which escalated Middle East tensions.
Iran didn’t identity which country the security service belonged to, but has blamed regional enemy Israel for similar attacks in the past. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Israel was responsible for the strike near the central city of Isfahan, citing unidentified US officials and people familiar with the operation.
The equipment and explosives were brought into Iran with the help of “Kurdish anti-revolutionary groups” in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan under orders by the foreign security service, Iran’s state-run Nour News reported.
Iran has said three unmanned “suicide drones” targeted the Defense Ministry complex on Saturday, stirring frictions in the energy-producing Persian Gulf. In the past Iran has retaliated for attacks by seizing ships in the region’s narrow shipping lane.
Read more: Attack on Iran Raises Tension as Blinken Visits Israel PM
Iran has previously accused Kurdish groups in Iraq of instigating anti-government protests over the death of a Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody in Tehran in September. In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched several drone and missile attacks on what it calls “separatist terrorists” in northern Iraq.
Israeli officials have declined to comment and the Pentagon denied US involvement. The State Department declined to comment on whether the US had prior knowledge of the strikes.
If confirmed as an Israeli operation, it would mark the first large-scale military attack conducted by Israel inside Iran since newly installed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last held office in 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Netanyahu said Monday that their countries are in agreement Iran must not have nuclear weapons and said they were working together to counter Tehran’s influence in the region.
The Iran attack comes after warnings from the United States about Tehran’s military support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, and aid also in the opposite direction. In December, Washington said Russia was providing “unprecedented” military backing to Iran, possibly including air defense systems, warplanes and attack helicopters, in return for Iranian supplies of drones for the Kremlin’s invasion of the neighboring state. An Iranian lawmaker last month confirmed a deal to buy advanced Su-35 fighter jets.
Saturday’s attack may have targeted a ballistic-missile factory, said Major General Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli military intelligence. “This is not deciding a war with Iran, it’s another operation in a huge and long campaign to reduce the capabilities of Iran, military and nuclear, without escalating to full-scale war,” he told reporters.
–With assistance from Paul Wallace.
(Adds detail on drone attack, map, detail)
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