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Israel launched a strike on Iran early Friday in what appeared to be a limited response to Tehran’s drone and missile assault last weekend, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the discussions.
The retaliatory strike was designed to be “limited” in scope in order to avoid a wider regional war, said the person familiar. The people were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
Both Iran and Israel seemed to want to prevent escalation in the hours after the strike. Israel has not claimed responsibility or commented, while Iranian officials have played down the attack. Iranian media reported that sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program had not been damaged.
The National Security Council declined to comment.
Iranian officials said the country’s air defense systems in the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz shot down a “suspicious object” that did not cause any damage, state media reported overnight. The comments came after explosions were heard close to a military airbase near Isfahan, home to Iran’s fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. The city is also home to facilities associated with Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran did not identify the source of the strike.
The Biden administration has also been mum about the attack. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when asked about the strike, said the U.S. was not involved in any “offensive operations.”
Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said the U.S. was “informed at the last minute” about the attack. Tajani and Blinken made their remarks while attending a G7 meeting in Capri, Italy.
But the situation is still precarious. The strike came hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran’s response would be ‘immediate” if Israel takes any military action against Iran.
“You see everyone contorting themselves on both sides to do something that’s palatable politically, but still meets the overarching aim” of not starting a regional war, the person familiar said.
Experts said the public messaging — and lack thereof — allows both sides to keep the crisis from spinning out of control.
“This strike is clearly intended to not escalate the situation further,” wrote Dana Stroul, who until December served as the Pentagon’s chief of Middle East policy, on social media. “If everyone decides that further rounds of state on state attacks are not in their interest, this chapter can [close]…for now.”
