The American leak that Israel is behind the attack on the Iranian weapons production facility in Isfahan, two days ago, underscores the fact that this is an incident of considerable importance. The political-security leadership in Washington would not have gone to the trouble of referring to a marginal incident and did so only to distance itself from any responsibility for the operation.
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The contradictory and nigh-on hysterical responses to it emanating from Tehran are also a sign of the Iranian regime's bewilderment, and probably also the severity of the hit incurred by the facility, where advanced missiles and drones are believed to be produced. The images published from the location of the incident showed a large fire at the site, but afterward the Iranians tried to claim that the drones that attacked it were intercepted on their way and that no significant damage was suffered.
Such a strike requires a lethal combination of quality intelligence and first-class operational capability. In terms of intelligence, detailed familiarity with the facility was required, its contents and the precise location of the equipment to be targeted, and as far as possible the number of personnel on-site at the time. The timing of the strike – on a Saturday evening, in other words, the weekend vacation – was chosen so that there would be as few people as possible at the facility, to reduce to a minimum any cost in terms of civilians there and consequently the demand for retaliation.
On the operational side, this strike required the ability to launch armed drones to explode on the target with maximum precision. As this involved relatively small drones (quadcopters with four rotors), it is not possible to launch them from outside Iranian territory, and thus it was necessary to do so from inside Iran's borders.
This clearly requires an extremely highly-developed capability, which only an elite few states boast – with Israel topping the list. The Mossad has already been accused in the past of targeting sites in Iran using a similar MO (modus operandi), among others, in a strike carried out a year ago on the facility in Kermanshah, where the Iranians also manufactured combat drones.
Over the past year, Iran has considerably accelerated its drone production, mainly of the Shahed-136 model, due to the contracts Iran signed with Russia, which is using these drones in its war against Ukraine. Israel Hayom recently exposed the fact that the two countries signed an additional contract, according to which Tehran is to supply Moscow with hundreds of additional drones. This supplements the Iranian effort to step up the production and supply of the drones also to its proxies in the Middle East, above all Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as the Shi'ite militias in Iraq.
This Iranian activity is a genuine source of concern for Israel, and it is safe to assume for Ukraine too, as well as the Western states supporting Kyiv. It is thus reasonable that the Americans were not surprised at the activity at the base and the fact that it was targeted; though, the fact that they were quick to absolve themselves of any responsibility – via the leak to the Wall Street Journal – indicates that they are concerned about an Iranian response (probably against their forces in the region), and this might also possibly be part of an effort to keep a channel open for continued dialogue on the nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
Assuming that Israel is indeed responsible for the strike, this would be the first such action to be taken under the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the past, the Mossad, under its previous head, Yossi Cohen, pursued an aggressive operational policy against Iran, and it appears that his successor, Dedi Barnea, seeks to continue along the same path.
These strikes were intended not only to disrupt and delay the Iranian activity, but also to generate a deterrent effect, and naturally, they also serve to increase the existing friction between the two countries. In Tehran, it didn't take long for the Iranians to call for revenge against Israel for the attack, and here in Israel, the authorities need to take all necessary precautions to prepare for any potential Iranian counter-attack, which might take the same form adopted by the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) in recent years, of attempts to hit ships in the Persian Gulf known to be under Israeli ownership, as well as other attempts to target Israeli objectives and figures around the world.
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