An Israeli Air Force F-16 fighter jet flies near the Israeli border with Gaza amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, December 10, 2023 (Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
The Israeli Air Force on Sunday destroyed two hostile drones that were dispatched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of pro-Iranian terror groups based in Iraq.
One drone was neutralized outside of Israeli airspace, while the other was downed over the Golan Heights in northern Israel. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed it had confronted a “suspicious aerial target” that approached Israeli airspace from the direction of Iraq in the east. It is unclear whether the second drone was destroyed over Syrian or Jordanian airspace.
Israel and Iraq do not have any diplomatic relations and have formally been in a state of war since January 1991, when the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles against Israel during the First Gulf War.
Since the post-Saddam Hussein era, and especially after the United States withdrew most of its forces from the region, the Iranian regime has dramatically increased its malicious influence in Iraq, where more than half of the population consists of Shiite Muslims who feel a natural affinity with Shiite Iran.
The Tehran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it had used “appropriate weapons” in its attack against Israel. Ever since the Hamas terror group’s massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, Iran and its regional terror proxies have stepped up their attacks against Israel in support of Gaza.
While the IDF is currently focused on fighting Hamas inside the Gaza Strip, Israel has been facing growing security threats on several fronts. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently assessed that Israel is under attack from no less than seven different fronts.
“We are in a multi-front war. We are being attacked from seven different arenas: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Iraq, Yemen, and Iran,” Gallant told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last Tuesday.
“We have already responded and acted in six of these areas, and I say here in the clearest way: Anyone who acts against us is a potential target, there is no immunity for anyone,” the Israeli defense minister warned. The common denominator of all the threats is that they are directed and backed by the Iranian ayatollah regime.
Tehran’s anti-Israel strategy has been to encircle Israel with terror militias along its borders, such as Hamas and PIJ in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and pro-Iranian terror militias in Syria. Iranian-loyal Houthis in Yemen and terror militias in Iraq represent a second layer of threat against Israel and Western interests in the region.
In December, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brig.-Gen. Razi Mousavi was killed in Syria during a targeted airstrike attributed to Israel. Mousavi was reportedly in charge of maintaining the Iranian-Syrian alliance and providing weapons to Hezbollah and other anti-Israel terror groups. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the alleged Israeli attack on the top Iranian general.
“Without a doubt, this action is another sign of frustration, helplessness, and incapacity of the usurping Zionist regime in the region,” Raisi stated, adding that Israel “will certainly pay for this crime.”
Israel and Iran had close diplomatic ties prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The virulently hostile Iranian ayatollah regime openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism while simultaneously seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
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