Israel carried out the attack inside Iran, a US official told CNN, in a move that threatens to push the region deeper into conflict.
Before the Israeli strike on Friday morning, the US expected it would not target civilian or nuclear facilities, another senior US official said.
CNN previously reported that Israel told the US that its response would be limited in scope. US intelligence has suggested that Israel is considering a narrow and limited strike inside Iran because it feels it must respond with some kind of kinetic action given the unprecedented scale of the Iranian attack
The scope of the targets “was never precisely specified, but nuclear and civilian sites were clearly not in that category,” another official added.
The US is urging Israel not to respond to last weekend’s Iranian attack, which President Joe Biden called “unprecedented” on Thursday. The US “has not given the green light” for an Israeli response, another official said.
The Israeli military, when asked by CNN about reports of explosions in Iran, said they had “no comment at this time.”
Iran’s air defense systems have been activated in several regions as a precaution against potential air threats, according to the latest report by the state-run Iranian news agency IRNA.
“Following the activation of air defenses in some parts of the country to tackle some possible targets, reports indicate that no large-scale strikes or explosions caused by any aerial threat have been reported so far,” IRNA said early Friday local time.
Extensive checks in Isfahan, a critical central province with significant nuclear facilities, show that all sensitive military and security installations remain safe, with no reported incidents.
Moreover, the IRNA stated that there was no activation of the anti-missile defense system.
The three drones were “successfully shot down by the country’s air defenses, so far there are no reports of a missile attack,” Iran’s National Cyberspace Center spokesman Hossein Dalirian told X.
Israel launched its attack on Iran on the birthday of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who turns 85 today. Currently, Iran’s official position is that there was no rocket attack, but that anti-aircraft batteries were operating in various places.
This contradicts reports coming out of the US by , as yet unidentified officials to numerous news organizations, that there was an Israeli strike that may have involved drones.
Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying there was no missile attack on Iran and that the explosion heard near Isfahan was the activation of an air defense system, one of several such incidents across Iran that also closed major airports.
However, an Iranian government official, and later Iran’s state television broadcaster, suggested that the sites may have been targeted by drones.
IRNA said the defense opened fire in several provinces. It was not specified what caused the batteries to catch fire, although people throughout the area reported hearing noises.
IRNA specifically said the air defenses fired at a large air base in Isfahan, which has long been home to Iran’s fleet of US F-14 Tomcats, bought before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies also reported the sound of explosions, without specifying the cause. State television acknowledged “loud noise” in the area.
IRNA announced about the air defense firing near Tabriz:
“Following the sound of an explosion in the west of Tabriz, northwestern Iran and near an area called Wadi-e-Rahmat, according to an IRNA report, it was revealed that the air defense of Tabriz fired at a suspicious object. There was no explosion in Tabriz, and the city is peaceful situation, Klix.ba reports.
