Iran launches attack on Israel that risks sparking regional war

Iran launched a retaliatory attack against Israel on Saturday that risks sparking a regional conflict that could draw in U.S. military forces. The attack marked the first time that Iran has launched a direct military attack on the Jewish state.

Israeli military officials said the attack began with more than 100 Iranian drones heading toward Israel. It will take hours before the drones arrive, and Israeli officials said they hope to intercept them.

A senior Biden administration official warned that the assault could also involve dozens of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

The official said the administration expects Israeli government facilities to be targeted but not civilian or religious sites. U.S. assets in the region are also not expected to be targeted, the official said.

The U.S. and Israel have been closely coordinating how to defend against the attack, the official said. “We’re ready. The Israelis are ready.”

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Iranian state television said that “in response to crimes by the Zionist Regime,” Iran had launched “missiles and drones on specific locations in the occupied lands.”

The attack came weeks after a suspected Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Syria’s capital, Damascus, killed two generals and five officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Israel did not take responsibility for that strike, but Tehran vowed revenge.

White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement that Iran has launched “airborne attacks on Israel.”

President Joe Biden is being updated about the situation in the Middle East by his national security team and plans to meet with them later Saturday at the White House, the statement said. Additionally, Biden’s team is in “constant contact” with Israeli officials, partners and allies.

The attack on Israel is likely “to unfold over a number of hours,” Watson said in the statement.

Three U.S. officials said Washington is prepared to help defend Israel with warships in the region, including the USS Carney, a destroyer that has been involved in knocking out missiles and drones in the Red Sea fired by Iranian-backed Houthi forces from Yemen.

The U.S. has signaled its support for Israel and worked to persuade Iran to stop short of a significant escalation that could spiral into a full-blown war between Iran and Israel.

Iran has previously avoided a direct conflict with Israel, instead opting to damage its adversary through armed proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere. In back-channel communications with the U.S. over the past two weeks, Iran indicated it would retaliate against Israel but wanted to avoid a massive escalation that would lead to all-out war, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The question now is whether Iran’s attack will be interpreted in the way Tehran has planned, or trigger an unintended reaction from Israel that could escalate into an uncontrollable cycle of violence, analysts said.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at a prayer ceremony celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Wednesday that Israel “must be punished, and it will be punished.” Since the building destroyed was a consular building, he said, it amounted to an attack on Iranian soil.

Growing tensions

Tensions in the region have been at boiling point since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 terror attack and mass hostage taking and Israel’s subsequent full-scale assault on the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 33,000 and pushed the population to the brink of starvation. While increasingly critical of the way Israel is pursuing the war in Gaza, Biden has pledged that America’s “commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad.”

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, spoke to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday and said that “a direct Iranian attack will require an appropriate Israeli response against Iran.”

Two U.S. officials told NBC News last week that the administration was considering options for how to respond to various possible retaliatory moves by Iran.

The blast at the consular building killed two of Iran’s top commanders, including Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior member of the Quds Force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite foreign espionage group.

His death marked the killing of the most senior Iranian official since Gen. Qassem Soleimani was targeted by an American airstrike in 2020.

Zahedi was a key figure in coordinating the so-called Axis of Resistance — the anti-Israel, anti-Western network of Iran-backed groups that operate with militants from across the Arab world. Tehran currently backs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — all of which in recent months have either attacked Israel directly or conducted attacks citing resistance to Israel.

Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese political party and militia, has exchanged fire with Israel across the southern Lebanon border since then in support of Hamas. More than 300 have been killed in Lebanon, according to the United Nations, including at least 54 confirmed civilians.

The Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel militia, have been firing on ships in the Red Sea for months, threatening a key route for global trade. The U.S. and U.K. have organized a military coalition against the Houthis, firing on the militia’s sites in Yemen in January.

Another Iran-associated militant group, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, struck a U.S. base in Jordan in January. Three U.S. troops were killed and 30 others were injured in the attack. The group has also claimed to have launched numerous attacks on Israeli sites since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Iran’s military reach

The IRGC, Iran’s immensely powerful military and political organization, has helped Tehran wage a shadow war with Israel across the Middle East for years while the two countries avoided direct conflict.

Israel is widely believed to be behind a long list of drone attacks and explosions that have hit Iranian military and nuclear targets, particularly since the collapse of talks to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced mounting domestic and global criticism over Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza, has long viewed the Islamic Republic as Israel’s most dangerous adversary.

Israel has struggled to contain and undermine Iran’s military reach in Syria, targeting arms deliveries bound for Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

Since Iran came to the aid of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria more than a decade ago, sending thousands of Shiite foreign fighters to Syria as well as Revolutionary Guard troops to help Damascus wage war against Syrian rebels, Israel has feared that Iran’s military presence across the border posed a growing threat.

After the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, Israel adopted a more aggressive stance, apparently concluding its previous tactics had failed to deter Iran and its partners in Gaza. Instead of attacking arms shipments or military sites in Syria, Israel went after senior figures overseeing Iran’s regional proxy network. In December, Israel is believed to have killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a top Iranian general, in Damascus.

Israel, which has nuclear weapons, a state-the-art air force and advanced air defenses, enjoys a military advantage over Iran. But Tehran has built up a formidable ballistic missile and drone arsenal, along with its proxies that can strike at Israeli or U.S. targets across the region.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com