Iran blames Israel for destroying hundreds of Iranian drones – report

The latest explosive exchanges between Israel and Iran may relate to Israel having destroyed hundreds of Iranian drones last month, according to a mix of Israeli and Lebanese reports.

Neither country had even mentioned the reported attack on a critical base in Western Iran until earlier this week, when it was first reported by the Lebanese television station Al Mayadeen, which is linked to both Hezbollah and Iran. Tehran blames Israel, but Jerusalem has not taken responsibility.

Subsequently, Haaretz on Tuesday confirmed the report and added a number of details with other Israeli media also filling in some details.

According to Al Mayadeen, this was the reason for Saturday night’s Iranian missile attack on Erbil on an alleged Mossad training base.

Iranian media on Tuesday continued to add details about the number of alleged Mossad agents who were hit by their attack on Erbil.

Many sources have contradicted the idea that there was a Mossad base there. The Islamic Republic often manufactures reports of busting Mossad agents to cover for going after local opposition figures.

But the juxtaposition with what most government officials and outside experts said was a massive Iranian cyberattack on Monday night suggests that Tehran genuinely felt it was hit hard somewhere and needed to hit back in a large and public way.

At the same time, Iranian media also continued to release more details about its alleged nabbing of Mossad agents who tried to recruit a member of Iran’s IR-6 centrifuge team at its Fordow nuclear facility.

While this report could also be disinformation, the degree of detail was unusual and resembled other earlier plots by the Mossad to infiltrate nuclear facilities via supply-chain penetration.

Moreover, some of the reports went into great detail about earlier successful reported Mossad hits on Iranian nuclear scientists, giving the reports at least the unusual appearance of heft since Tehran was not claiming perfection in its conflict with the Israeli spy agency by any means.

In mid-February, Reuters reported that a fire broke out at a military base in western Iran, potentially being the location of the drones though without mentioning the drones, based on a report from media affiliated with the country’s Supreme National Security Council reported.

“On Monday morning, a fire broke out in a stockroom where motor oil and other flammable materials were stored in one of the support bases of the Revolutionary Guards in the Mahidasht region of Kermanshah Province, causing damage to an industrial shed,” Nour news reported.

That report merely said that the fire was put out by rescuers, and that teams had been dispatched to the support base to investigate the cause of the incident, without referencing the drones.

Jerusalem Post Staff and Reuters contributed to this report.