Israel attacked an air base in the city of Isfahan, in the heart of Iran, early yesterday. The attack occurred around 4 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. in Spain), and was concentrated on a base located about 30 kilometers from the city center. At that base are the F-14 Tomcats, military aircraft acquired from the United States before the revolution, the jewel in the crown of a greatly depleted air force. Likewise, several drones were shot down in Tabriz, in the northeast of the country, where explosions were also heard. In parallel, Israel hit military facilities in southern Syria with missiles, according to the Syrian Ministry of Defense, which reported “material damage.”
The attack, which was initially confirmed by a US official to ABC, was reported by some Iranian news agencies, including Fars News, which in the early morning claimed that the center of the attack had been the town of Qahjaverestan and the headquarters of the tactical air base TFB 8. But this information was quickly forgotten by the Iranian media, which began to talk about attacks with three small drones that had been destroyed by the air defense. The incident was ignored by the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, who yesterday made a public intervention in the province of Degham, during a visit. The only authority to mention it was the army’s top commander, Commander Seyyed Mousavi, who said that the air defense had been activated by suspicious objects, but that there was no damage.
Israel did not comment, but official sources in Washington assured that the Israeli military informed the American military of the attack. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a press conference during the G-7 meeting in Capri, declined to comment but said the US had no involvement in the attack.
The main question of the attack is the diversity of the versions offered. While official US media reported that a missile had been launched, the Iranian authorities referred only to three small drones that had been launched from inside Iranian territory, at an unspecified location.
But the missile theory began to be reinforced during the day when bodies of air-to-ground missiles appeared in neighboring Iraq that could have been launched by Israeli F-16s out of Iranian airspace, landing on Iraqi territory. In the early morning explosions and air movement were heard in Iraq, which some analysts said could be related to the attack on Isfahan. “There are no reports of an attack from abroad against the city of Isfahan or any other part of the country,” said the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assured that the nuclear facilities in Isfahan were not damaged. Iranian television showed the city center live in the morning, in absolute normality. The authorities closed Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and other important airfields for a few hours. Isfahan was already the target of an Israeli attack in January 2023.
The Iranian media played down the scale of the attack. However, last night the military remained “on high alert for [new] attacks,” Amwaj Media reported, noting that in any case, and according to “informed sources,” Iran would avoid a direct confrontation with Israel.
It must be remembered that Ebrahim Raisi said in recent days that an Israeli attack would be retaliated immediately. However, there was no report that he had convened the National Security Council, something that would indicate the preparation of a response to the attack. A senior Iranian official confirmed to Reuters that there will be no immediate retaliation. The Tasnim agency confirmed that “air defense units have been activated in some places such as Isfahan and Tabriz, but these measures were due to the high sensitivity of the air defense systems due to the current situation and the possibility of detecting certain small drones.” .
