Ukraine: Kyiv is targeted by Russian drone strikes
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Israel’s former National Security Advisor Professor Jacob Nagel fears that Iran could seek revenge after Tel Aviv successfully bombed an Iranian drone-making factory in Syria, he told Express.co.uk in an exclusive interview. A manufacturing site that was responsible for making Iranian-designed drones in Syria was targeted in Israeli airstrikes last month, according to reports from the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR). Sources close to the matter have claimed the attack successfully hit and destroyed equipment used for manufacturing drones in the area of the Dimas military airport.
Prof Nagel, who previously served as the head of Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) and as Benjamin Netanyahu’s (the former Prime Minister who is on course to get re-elected today, according to exit polls) acting National Security Advisor, has warned that there is a chance Iran will not let this go unnoticed, although he was sceptical as to how effective an Iranian attack would be.
He told Express.co.uk: “They [Iran] can try to retaliate. But remember that the last time they tried to retaliate the Iranian forces sent us 40 or 50 missiles from Syria to Israel, about 75 percent of the weapons fell in the Syrian area.
“But we have to be alert all the time for retaliation for counters from Iran, from Syria, from others. We have to be prepared. They know if Israel retaliates it won’t be good for them.”
But Prof Nagel explained that Israel has been prepared for such a situation for over a decade, with the heated tension between the two nations being anything but new.
He said: “The war between wars is something that we started almost 10 or 11 years ago. We started mostly under the radar mostly to try and work against Iran’s nuclear programme.
“We started in the cyber attacks in the centrifuges and other things. Now it is large and escaping and it has spilt over. Now it is mostly against Iranians or Syrians or Hezbollah forces in Syria.
“According to the foreign press, there are three lines for Israel, and if one of these three lines is breached. Isreal is doing what it should do. The first one is, we cannot allow terror activities by terror organisations on our borders.
“The second is that we cannot allow the transfer of game-changing systems from Iran via Syria to Israel. The third – we cannot allow the Iranian forces to stabilise in Syria. If one of these three happens, according to foreign sources, we will attack.”
On Monday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened to unleash drones on Israeli and US targets in the Middle East, in a video posted Monday to the group’s Telegram channel.
The IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by the Governments of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the US, but is also officially recognised as part of the Iranian military under Article 150.
Back in February 2022, SOHR alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, together with Hezbollah (a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group), started building drone factories and other facilities at a number of different spots around Damascus (the Syrian capital), including Dimas.
US officials also suspect that Iran may have been responsible for a drone attack last October in al-Tanf in Syria, claiming that the attacks involved up to five drones that were carrying explosive charges.
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Iranian-made drones have also been ending up on the battlefield in Ukraine, being deployed by Vladimir Putin’s troops in brutal strikes that have taken out over 40 percent of the country’s critical infrastructure.
Dubbed “suicide drones”, the Shahed-136’s swoop down into stationary targets before detonating. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded with Israel to help Ukraine defend itself against these attacks by providing weapons, but Israel has refused to do so as it appears to be maintaining a balancing act to keep Putin’s support for air strikes against Iran in Syria.
This has appeared to anger the Ukrainian President, who “can’t understand” why Israel hasn’t “picked a side”.
Mr Zelensky has previously said: “I don’t understand Israel… I had meetings and I asked so many times, each of them to help us. It doesn’t mean just giving money or military. [It means] to choose the right side.”
But while Israel has not given weapons, it is reportedly providing valuable intelligence and satellite imagery to help the Ukrainian forces take out drones, officials have said.
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