An Iranian Zelzal missile is launched during a test at an unknown location in central Iran September 27, 2009. (Photo: REUTERS/Fars News/Ali Shayegan)
The Iranian regime is preparing for a possible attack against Israel from Iraqi territory that might be carried out even before the upcoming U.S. elections, Israeli intelligence sources told the Axios news outlet.
Meanwhile, Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq have already ramped up their attacks on Israel, with the IDF stating on Friday morning that it shot down three drones launched from Iraq overnight.
According to the Axios report, Tehran is prepared for the option to launch a large number of drones and ballistic missiles from Iraq in response to Israeli strikes on its territory, however, an American official said the United States is not certain whether the regime has definitively decided to take such action.
Last Saturday, Israel carried out its much-threatened response strikes against Iran , with over 100 aircraft striking dozens of Iranian military sites in three separate waves.
The New York Times cited three Iranian officials who said that the next Iranian attack would only happen after the U.S. elections so as not to help former President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.
They explained that the regime’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had given instructions to prepare for fresh attacks on Israel after reviewing reports of the damage caused by Israel’s strikes.
Khamenei reportedly saw the scope of the attack, including the damage wrought to missile production and air defense facilities – as well as the death of four soldiers – as too large to ignore without losing face.
An Israeli military source told CNN that the IDF is maintaining a “high level of readiness” to respond to Iranian attacks, echoing recent statements by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi.
Halevi warned, “ If Iran makes the mistake and launches another barrage of missiles at Israel, we will once again know how to reach Iran, even with capabilities that we did not use this time.”
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Israel had struck the regime’s “soft underbelly.”
“The haughty words of the Iranian regime’s leaders cannot cover up the fact in Iran today, Israel has greater freedom of action than ever before. We can go anywhere that we need to in Iran,” the prime minister said.
After initially downplaying the Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, over the last few days, the regime sharpened the tone of its rhetoric , with several officials publicly vowing to strike back at Israel again.
On Thursday, Khamenei’s chief of staff, Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, told the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Mayadeen network that retaliation was “certain” and would “make our enemy regret” its attack, promising to carry out a “fierce, tooth-breaking response.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deputy commander, Gen. Ali Fadavi, added, “We have never left an aggression unanswered in 40 years. We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation.”
Despite the rhetoric, the report from Axios regarding Iran’s plans to launch its new attacks from Iraq indicates that the regime wants to protect itself by preventing another round Israeli strikes on its territory.
The IDF estimates it destroyed all the regime’s strategic air defense capabilities for the next two to three years, leaving it unable to fend off future aerial strikes.
Therefore, the regime apparently seeks to use its proxy militias of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) to launch another attack.
Against this backdrop, IRI ramped up its attacks on Israel in recent days, launching three drones that were intercepted by the IDF last night. One of the drones was shot down over Syrian territory, according to the IDF. In the evening, Jordanian reports indicated that another drone, likely launched by IRI, crashed about 60 km (less than 40 miles) north of Amman.
Today in Souf, Jordan (about 60 km north of Amman), footage captured the fall of a drone, suspected to have been launched by Iranian-backed proxies in Syria or Iraq. pic.twitter.com/lnxu74T4xB
— Ahmad Sharawi (@AhmadA_Sharawi) October 31, 2024
Two more drones were shot down in the area near the Dead Sea, with IRI claiming responsibility for the attack. The night before, another two drones were intercepted near the Dead Sea.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is scrambling to avoid being drawn into the Iran-Israel conflict and is attempting to prevent the launch of attacks against Israel from its territory, according to Reuters.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s government sent two delegations of top security officials to Iran in recent months to request the regime to rein in its proxies, according to Reuters.
“The Iraqi delegation received a cold reception in Tehran … The answer was: those groups have their own decision and it is their call to decide how to support their brothers in Lebanon and Gaza,” a senior Iraqi security official said.
Two of the IRI’s constituent groups, Kataib Hezbollah and a-Nujaba, reportedly warned al-Sudani to stop pressuring them and vowed to continue attacking Israel as long as it was fighting Hamas and Hezbollah.
