Alarm in the Middle East. Iran ready to attack Israel
According to the American television CBS News, which cited US officials, Iran may launch attacks using dozens of precision missiles and over 100 drones on military facilities in Israel on Friday.
These announcements were confirmed by Javad Karimi Quddusi, a member of the Iranian parliament and member of the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy. Quddusi announced in a message on Platform up to 2.5 thousand km.
Any missile with a range of approximately 2,000 km, could be used to attack Israel from Iranian territory – noted the Iran International website.
According to Tehran’s announcement, this would be retaliation for the Israeli shelling of the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 1. The strike likely killed more than a dozen people, including three senior Iranian commanders and four other officers who oversaw Tehran’s covert operations in the Middle East region. Israel did not admit to the attack, but did not deny the accusations of carrying it out.
US President Joe Biden on Friday delivered his message to Iran, which threatened military action against Israel, Reuters reported. As reported by the agency, this message was: “don’t do it” (original version: “don’t”).
We are committed to defending Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed, Biden told reporters.
The US president said: “I don’t want to go into classified information, but I expect it will be sooner rather than later.”
The United States is moving “additional military resources” to the Middle East to “strengthen deterrence efforts there and increase the level of protection of U.S. forces,” Defense Department sources told Fox News.
The American aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower appeared in the waters of the Red Sea near Israel on Friday; this unit would be able to intercept Iranian missiles and drones if Tehran carried out its threats to attack Israeli military facilities, the Times of Israel reported.
Austrian Airlines, the last Western European airline to offer flights to Iran, said on Friday it was suspending all flights from Vienna to Tehran until April 18 in response to escalating tensions in the region.
“The routes through Iranian airspace will also change,” Austrian Airlines said in a statement. They added that “the safety of our passengers and crews is our highest priority.”
Earlier on Friday, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on its citizens residing in Iran to leave the country.
What could be the development of the situation in the Middle East? RMF FM journalist Jakub Rybski asked Marcin Krzyżanowski, an orientalist from the Jagiellonian University, about this.
The expert emphasized that “an attack by Iran on Israel is possible,” but “there are currently holidays related to the end of Ramadan – this is the first thing.” Secondly, Iran’s foreign minister will soon be going to the UN meeting in New York. And thirdly, and most importantly, Iran itself does not want a war, it does not want an escalation of the threat to its territory – he said.
Iran has achieved its current position, which has been built over many years, precisely by avoiding direct clashes and using a whole network of local allies. This allowed him to keep the Americans in check, noted Marcin Krzyżanowski.