MESOP MIDEAST WATCH: Irans Attack Was Response to Secret Israeli Attack on Drone Site

Israel and Iran are pushing the boundaries of a long-running clandestine war that is increasingly spilling out of the shadows. Iranian missiles struck this building in Erbil, Iraq, on Sunday that Iran said housed an Israeli intelligence operation.By Farnaz Fassihi, NEW YRK TIMES 16-3-2022

Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles into Iraq over the weekend, striking what it claimed was an Israeli target and leaving some analysts scratching their heads about what exactly precipitated the blitz and why Iraq.

Now, officials say, the attack was retaliation for a previously secret Israeli airstrike on an Iranian drone factory last month. And, according to some officials, the Israeli intelligence operatives who launched the airstrike were based in Iraq.

The tit-for-tat strikes represent an alarming escalation in the long-running shadow war between Israel and Iran, as both sides push the boundaries of a conflict that has also entangled the United States and now Iraq.

For Israel, the attack on the Iranian drone facility is part of a new approach in countering Iran’s growing drone program, a tacit recognition that it is easier to pre-emptively destroy a drone than to intercept one en route. Iranian drones have been deployed in numerous attacks against Israel, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and, last October, a U.S. base in Syria, according to intelligence officials.

For Iran, the missile strike in Erbil, Iraq, on Sunday reflects both a more aggressive policy of responding to Israeli attacks and a more overt one: Unlike most previous attacks attributed to Iran, Iran, not one of its proxies, immediately claimed responsibility for this one, a sign of confidence that it can do so with impunity. Iran’s use of ballistic missiles instead of rockets or drones was also a serious escalation.

For years, Israel and Iran have engaged in a largely covert war, keeping their actions brief, limited and, if not completely secret, at least deniable, in an effort to prevent a full-scale direct war that neither side wants. But as the recent strikes demonstrate, each side is willing to test those limits.

And in a sign of the increasing reliance on drones, or remotely piloted aircraft, Israel’s attack on the Iranian drone facility last month was carried out by drones.

A senior intelligence official briefed on the operation said that six suicide quadcopter drones exploded into the Iranian facility near Kermanshah, Iran, on Feb. 12. The official, who asked not be identified when discussing sensitive intelligence issues, said the facility was Iran’s main manufacturing and storage plant for military drones, and that the Israeli attack destroyed dozens of them.

Iranian officials have not confirmed that the facility was used for drones, referring to it only as a base for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the paramilitary force that carries out much of Iran’s foreign military activities.

Iran’s drone program has been the subject of increasing concern to Israeli and American officials, as well as to Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. A document compiled by Israeli intelligence lists 15 drone attacks carried out by Iran or its proxies in the region from February 2018 to September 2021.

Israeli military officials say that Israel has been attacked by Iranian drones several times. Last year, an Israeli F35 fighter jet intercepted two drones that Israel claimed had taken off from Iran, on their way to the Gaza Strip to drop off a supply of pistols for Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, the Israeli military said.

American officials say that Iran also provides drone technology to proxy forces in Iraq and Syria, who carry out strikes against American personnel in those countries with Tehran’s blessing or direction.

Last October, five so-called suicide drones were launched at the American base at Al Tanf, Syria, in what the military’s Central Command called a “deliberate and coordinated” attack. The attack caused no casualties but the drones were loaded with ball bearings and shrapnel in a “clear intent to kill,” a senior U.S. military official said.

U.S. officials said they believed that Iran directed and supplied the local proxy forces that carried out the attack in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in Syria, the first time Iran directed a military strike against the United States in response to an attack by Israel.

The real wake-up call on the threat of Iran’s drone program came in 2019, with a pair of dramatic pinpoint strikes on two Saudi oil facilities carried out by a combination of drones and cruise missiles.

The strikes were claimed by the Houthis, a Yemeni insurgent group, but American and Israeli officials said they were directed and possibly carried out by Iran. Iran denied responsibility.