File image.
Explosions were heard near the Iranian city of Isfahan early on April 19 with several news agencies reporting an Israeli retaliatory strike against an air base near the city.
Iranian state TV said that “three drones were observed in the sky over Isfahan. The air defense system became active and destroyed these drones in the sky.”
Local officials initially grounded flights and cleared its airspace over Isfahan, but lifted restrictions on flights soon after. State TV later said the situation in the city was normal and no ground explosions had occurred.
Senior military commander, Second Brigadier General Mihandoust, told the semi-official Tasnim news agency there was “no damage” and the noises heard overnight were due to air defense systems targeting a “suspicious object.”
Other semi-official news agencies reported that sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program in Isfahan were “completely secure” and the attack appeared to be limited in scope.
However, unnamed Israeli and American officials told United States news outlets that Israel had carried out a retaliatory strike against Iran.
The New York Times said that three Iranian sources confirmed that an air base near Isfahan had been hit. The air base is the home to Iran’s fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats fighter jets.
Meanwhile, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters the U.S. was not involved but was notified by Israel before the attack. Another source from Iran said that the country has no plan to strike back immediately.
“The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed. We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack,” the Iranian official told the news agency on condition of anonymity.
CNN quoted a senior U.S. official as saying that Israel told the U.S. the attack was not targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. Both CNN and Fox News quoted officials describing the Israeli attack on Iran as “limited”.
An Israeli source told the Washington Post that the attack was meant to serve as a warning that Israel’s military has the ability to reach Iran.
Separately, “material losses” were reported in Syria around the same time as the attack on Iran after an Israeli strike targeted “air defense sites” in the country’s southern region, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported citing a military official. A radar site in the governorate of al-Suwayda, near the border with both Jordan and Iraq, was reportedly struck.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel over the night of April 13 and 14 in response to an Israeli strike that targeted Iran’s embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, at the beginning of the month and killed a number of its senior members.
Israel has vowed to respond, without saying when or how, while its allies have called on both sides to avoid further escalation.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had warned Israel before the attack on Isfahan that Tehran would deliver a “severe response” to any attack on its territory.
Iran told the United Nations Security Council on April 18 that Israel “must be compelled to stop any further military adventurism against our interests” as the U.N. secretary-general warned that the Middle East was in a “moment of maximum peril.”
Israel’s leadership and the military were silent after the reports of the attack on Iran, likely in an attempt to avoid further escalation.
Overall, the attack on Isfahan appears to be Israel’s response to Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone strikes. The attack was likely carried out using drones, which may have been launched by Israeli intelligence from Iranian territory, or missiles launched by Israeli fighter jets from the direction of Syria, Jordan or Iraq. The limited scale of the attack suggests that Iran has re-established deterrence with Israel.
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