August 9, 2019
Iran has confirmed the death of a senior Pasdar officer at one of the bases—though it has not said who attacked the base and has avoided implicating Israel in the death.
Baghdad has also not charged Israel in either attack. The initial news reports came from a Saudi news outlet. The reports were picked up by many Israeli media, which clearly were not told by the Israeli military that the reports were wrong.
The first report came from Asharq Al-Awsat, a quality Arabic language daily owned by Saudis but based in London outside Saudi censorship. The report cited Western diplomatic sources as saying the raids were carried out by Israeli F-35I warplanes. These are American-made stealth jets that were just recently acquired by Israel. Later, the Saudi-based Al-Arabiyya television station carried a similar report.
Initially, some in Iraq accused the United States of the attack, since Americans warplanes are frequently in Iraqi skies, flying back and forth from bases in the Persian Gulf to bombing runs inside Syria. But the Americans flatly denied any involvement, though they said they knew of the attack. Israel would presumably clear any military flights inside Iraq with the United States because they would otherwise risk being shot down by American jets.
In Tehran, the Young Journalists Club news agency said Abu Alfazl Sarabian, a senior Pasdar commander, was killed in Iraq July 19 in an attack “by Israel and the United States.” It said he died in an attack on an Iraqi base in Armeli directly north of Baghdad.
The second attack was reportedly nine days later on July 28 and targeted the Iraqi base that was once Camp Ashraf, used at one time by the Mojahedin-e Khalq. It is located farther north of Baghdad than the first attack.
Last month in Israel, Tzachi Hanegbi, a member of the cabinet, boasted in a speech that Israel is the only country in the world that has been “killing Iranians.”
The two attacks are the first in Iraq by the Israeli Air Force since the 1981 air raid that destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor, stopping work on a nuclear weapon that Saddam Hussein would likely have used against Iran.
Israeli routinely attacks sites inside Syria where Iran stores weapons destined for the Lebanese Hezbollah. It has launched such attacks “hundreds” of time in the last eight years, by Israel’s own admission. The targets this time were reportedly also weapons storage sites—but whether the weapons were destined for the Iraqi militias or Hezbollah was unknown.
Around 80 members of Iraq’s parliament urged the government to condemn, or at least respond in some way, to the two strikes attributed to Israel—but the government has remained mum. That effectively means that it accepts the attacks and does not feel imperiled by them. Many interpreted the silence as meaning that Iraq does not choose to step into the middle of the feud between Israel and Iran
Iraqi journalists reminded Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi that he swore Iraq would never become a launching pad for attacks on Iran. They have also recalled the recent statement by Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Fareed Yasseen, who said, “There are objective reasons that may call for normalizing relations with Israel.”
European diplomats say Israeli officials have been holding secret meetings with Iraqi government officials for some time now.
One question being asked is who helped the fighter jets. Haaretz, a leading Israeli daily, said that, when operating in stealth mode and without external fuel tanks, the F-35I doesn’t have the range to reach Iraq from Israel without refueling in midair. That suggested the plane had external fuel tanks and thus was not in stealth mode.
Another question concerned the long flight path, which presumably passed through Syrian as well as Iraqi airspace. That would have exposed the planes to Russian and Syrian radar if they weren’t in stealth mode. If they were Israeli planes, they could have flown via Jordanian airspace. But Haaretz said Amman “would never authorize such a flight…. This would leave no other choice but to fly over Syria.”
The last question is what purpose the attack served. There’s nothing new about the presence in Iraq of Iranian Zelzel and Fateh-110 missiles, which have ranges of 200 to 700 kilometers and are capable of hitting Israel. In August 2018, Reuters reported that Iran had been moving dozens of missiles into Iraq for months and had also restarted operations at missile factories in Al-Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf al-Sakhar, near Karbala. The report also revealed the existence of a third missile plant in Iraqi Kurdistan. The factories date back to the days of Saddam Hussein’s rule, but they were revived in 2016.
In May 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a visit to Baghdad to tell Iraq’s prime minister to stop letting Iran bring missiles into the country and to remove the Iranian missiles that were already there. According to several reports, including one that cited former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Alawi, Israel gave Pompeo photographs of the missiles and launch pads, and said in no uncertain terms that it would take action against them if Iraq didn’t remove them itself.
Haaretz said Israel believes Trump gave Israel sweeping authorization last December to defend itself by attacking targets in Iraq. That may have been the change that moved Israel to attack sites in Iraq—and that suggests there will be more attacks on sites in Iraq that Iran uses.