Tehran, Iran:

Iran on Saturday warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.

Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.

In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.

But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”

The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian operatives attacked southern Israel.

Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.

Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Iran also backs other groups in the region.

The Islamic republic has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.

Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.

Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as US media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.

Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Stockholm:

Iran is recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs, some of them children, as proxies to commit “acts of violence” against Israel and other states and groups in Sweden that Tehran considers a threat, Sweden’s intelligence agency said Thursday.

The announcement came two weeks after nighttime gunfire was reported outside Israel’s embassy in Stockholm and three months after police found an unexploded grenade lying on the grounds of the Israeli compound.

“The Swedish Security Police notes that the Iranian regime is using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out acts of violence against other states, groups or people in Sweden that it considers a threat,” the intelligence service, commonly known as Sapo, said in a statement.

It cited in particular “Israeli and Jewish interests, targets and operations in Sweden”.

“Iran has previously used violence in other countries in Europe in a bid to silence critical voices and perceived threats against its regime,” it said.

“Our assessment is that this is a regional conflict that has spread globally and now also includes Sweden as an arena for this conflict,” the head of Sapo’s counterintelligence service Daniel Stenling told a press conference.

He said “very young individuals, even children, can be used to carry out Iranian activities that threaten security in Sweden”.

The Scandinavian country has struggled to contain surging gang violence in recent years, with shootings and bombings now weekly occurrences across the country.

The gang violence was originally linked to control over the drugs market.

Sapo said it was collaborating with the police, military and international allies “to meet the threat from Iran”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut:

Israeli strikes on Friday targeted a Syrian army position in the country’s south, Syria’s government and a monitor said, as US media reported Israel had hit its arch-rival Iran.

In a statement, Syria’s defence ministry said “the Israeli enemy carried out an attack using missiles… targeting our air defence sites in the southern region” and causing material damage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israel targeted an army radar position in the southern province of Daraa that had detected the entry of Israeli planes into Syria’s airspace.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Observatory, said the strikes took place “at a time when the Israeli air force was flying intensively over the Daraa region” without Syrian air defences taking any action.

The Israeli military has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the outbreak of a civil war in its northern neighbour in 2011, targeting the army and Iran-backed fighters.

But the strikes have increased since Israel’s war with Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7.

Rayan Maarouf, who runs the Suwayda24 anti-government new website, had earlier told AFP there had been strikes on a Syrian army radar position in Sweida province, without specifying their origin.

The latest strikes came as explosions were reported early on Friday in central Iran, with senior US officials reporting an Israeli attack.

Iran’s Fars news agency reported three explosions near a military base in the province of Isfahan. The official news agency IRNA said there was “no major damage”.

Israel warned it would hit back after Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Israel overnight on April 13 in an unprecedented attack, which was retaliation for a deadly strike on its Damascus consulate.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin on the last day campaigning for the first phase of the Lok Sabha election to be held on April 19, 2024
| Photo Credit: R. Ravindran

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Trucks carry the coffins of Revolutionary Guard members killed in an airstrike widely attributed to Israel that destroyed Iran’s Consulate in Syria in a funeral procession in Tehran, Iran on April 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned on April 7 that Israeli embassies are “no longer safe” after a strike in Syria which Tehran blamed on Israel killed seven Revolutionary Guards members.

“The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

Tehran has vowed to avenge Monday’s air strike on Damascus that levelled the Iranian embassy’s consular annex, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members including two generals.

“The resistance front is ready; how it (the response) will be, we have to wait,” Mr. Safavi said, noting that “confronting this brutal regime is a legal and legitimate right”.

Also Read | India urges Israel to ensure safety and well-being of Indian workers

He also noted that multiple Israeli embassies around the region “have been shuttered”.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Monday’s attack, which Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed 16 people, was the fifth raid on Syria in a week blamed on Israel.

Among the dead were generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi who were senior commanders in the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm.

Zahedi, 63, had held several commands during a career spanning more than 40 years.

He was the most senior Iranian soldier killed since a United States missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed Quds Force chief General Qasem Soleimani.

Monday’s strike in Damascus took place against the backdrop of the Gaza war which began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians.

Tehran backs Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in the attack which sparked massive Israeli retaliation against the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory says at least 33,175 people have been killed there during six months of war.

Iran does not recognise Israel, and the two countries have fought a shadow war for years.

The Islamic republic accuses Israel of having carried out a wave of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear programme.

Israel launched air strikes on the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon early on Sunday, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, a few hours after the downing of an Israeli drone over Lebanon.

The sources said that the Israeli attack targeted a training camp belonging to armed group Hezbollah in the Janta village, near the border with Syria.

One of the strikes was aimed at the town of Safri, near the eastern city of Baalbek, the sources added.

Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since Oct. 8, a day after Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on Israel that has led to escalating regional tensions.

The Iran-backed group claimed responsibility for downing an Israeli drone earlier on Saturday.

“The drone belonging to the Israeli army, which was shot down by the Islamic resistance fighters over Lebanese territory on the evening of Saturday, April 6, 2024, is of type Hermez 900,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Israel, who has been waging a war against the terrorist organisation Hamas for six months, now needs to strengthen another front. Iran has said that it is prepared for war and will deliver a “slap” to Israel.

Iran’s remarks come after an Israel airstrike hit their consulate in Damascus, killing at least seven Iranians, including two generals. While Israel has repeatedly targeted Iran-linked assets in Syria over the past few months, this was the first time an attack struck an Iranian diplomatic building.

Israel has been on alert since then, canceling home leave for combat troops, calling up reserves, and bolstering air defenses. Its military scrambled navigational signals over Tel Aviv on Thursday to disrupt GPS-navigated drones or missiles that might be fired at the country.

Israel-Iran Shadow War: Origins

The roots of this shadow conflict trace back to the overthrow of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979. Following the Islamic revolution, Iran’s leaders adopted an anti-Israel stance, aligning themselves with groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, brought about a new worldview that predominantly championed Islam. He called for a fight against “arrogant” world powers who oppress others – including Palestinians – to serve their interests.

The new government in Iran started referring to Israel as the “Little Satan” to the “Great Satan” that is the US.

Meanwhile, Israel perceives Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat and has allegedly conducted covert operations to thwart its atomic program.

The Battlegrounds

The clashes between Israel and Iran have not been limited to ideologies or proxy groups, with both countries often attacking the other. But both publicly deny carrying out the attacks, which is why the conflict has become known as a “shadow war” that has spread to several other countries in the region.

Lebanon serves as one of the battlegrounds in the shadow war between the two Middle Eastern nations, with Hezbollah emerging as a proxy for Iran’s interests in the region. Israeli incursions into Lebanon, coupled with Hezbollah’s rocket attacks into Israel, have perpetuated a cycle of violence along the border.

Syria’s civil war provided another theater for the conflict, as Iran bolstered its military presence to support President Bashar al-Assad and facilitate arms transfers to Hezbollah. In response, Israel has launched numerous airstrikes targeting Iranian assets in Syria, further escalating tensions.

Maritime incidents have also contributed to the hostility between the two adversaries, with attacks on commercial vessels suspected to be carried out by both Israel and Iran.

What Is Happening Now?

Suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in Damascus on Monday in a strike that killed an Iranian military commander and marked a major escalation in Israel’s war with its regional adversaries.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that seven Iranian military advisers died in the strike, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force, which is an elite foreign espionage and paramilitary arm.

Iran has said it reserves the right “to take a decisive response” and will deliver a “slap” to Israel.

Why Is US On High Alert

Amid the escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict, US President Joe Biden dialled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and assured him of support.

“Our teams have been in regular and continuous contact since then. The United States fully supports the defense of Israel against threats from Iran,” a senior Biden administration official said.

But just hours after the Biden call became public, Iran issued a statement warning the US to stay out of the conflict.

In a written message to Washington, Iran “warned the US not to get dragged into Netanyahu’s trap,” Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, wrote on X, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US should “step aside so that you don’t get hit.”

Is An All-Out War Between Israel And Iran A Possibility?

The specter of all-out war looms large, particularly concerning Iran’s nuclear program. Despite Iran’s claims of peaceful intent, Israeli officials remain sceptical, citing intelligence suggesting otherwise.

Israeli officials have repeatedly implied that if Iran were to reach the brink of weapons capability, they would attack its nuclear program using air power, as they did Iraq’s in 1981 and Syria’s in 2007.