Axios: US preparing for Iranian attack on Israel in coming days

The Biden administration is convinced that Iran is going to attack Israel in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Ghani in Tehran earlier this week and is preparing to counter it.

Source: Axios, citing three unnamed U.S. officials.

Any Iranian retaliation is expected to follow the same pattern as their April 13 attack on Israel, but potentially on a larger scale, and could also include Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also vowed to respond to the Israeli airstrike on Beirut on Tuesday that killed his top military adviser.

The Biden administration is concerned that it may be more difficult to mobilize the same international and regional coalition of countries that defended Israel against the previous Iranian attack, as Ghani's assassination comes in the context of a war between Israel and Hamas that has sparked sharp anti-Israeli sentiment across the region.

The April attack was carried out in response to an Israeli air strike on an Iranian facility in Damascus, which killed a senior Iranian general.

Several Arab countries, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, either helped shoot down Iranian and Houthi drones or allowed the United States and Israel to use their airspace to intercept threats.

On Wednesday, U.S. intelligence began to receive clear signals that Iran was going to retaliate, a U.S. official said.

Two other U.S. officials said that the Iranians and their proxies could take several days to coordinate and prepare an attack on Israel.

Another U.S. official said the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command are conducting preparations similar to those they conducted in the run-up to the April attack.

Author - Dmitriy Levchenko, 02/08/2024