Tehran blames Israel, vows revenge for Isfahan strike

Iran blamed Israel for a drone attack on a military factory near the central city of Isfahan, the semi-official ISNA news agency said on Thursday, vowing revenge for what appeared to be the latest episode in a long-running covert war.

In a letter to the UN chief, Iran’s UN envoy, Amir Saeid Iravani, said primary investigation suggested Israel was responsible for the attack on Saturday night.

“Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right to defend its national security and firmly respond to any threat or wrongdoing of the Zionist regime wherever and whenever it deems necessary,” Iravani said in the letter, adding that “this action undertaken by the Zionist regime goes against international law.”

The attack came amid tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear activity and its supply of arms – including long-range “suicide drones” – for Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as months of anti-government demonstrations at home.

Israel has long said it is willing to strike Iranian targets if diplomacy fails to curb Tehran’s nuclear or missile programs, but it has a policy of withholding comment on specific incidents.

In July, Iran said it had arrested a sabotage team of Kurdish militants working for Israel who planned to blow up a “sensitive” defense industry center in Isfahan.

On January 29, there were four explosions at the site, all of which appeared to specifically target a facility developing advanced weapons.

Despite the Islamic Republic claiming otherwise, the damage goes far beyond the “minor roof damage” that it has also falsely claimed before in other incidents in recent years.

A separate NourNews report on Wednesday said that by studying the exploded components of the drones, the “manufacturer has been precisely identified and important clues have been revealed.”

Several nuclear sites are located in Isfahan province, including Natanz, the centerpiece of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which Tehran accused Israel of sabotaging in 2021. There have been a number of explosions and fires around Iranian military,

nuclear and industrial sites in recent years.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Ukrainian Ambassador to the Islamic Republic Sergei Bordeliak to discuss the recent statements of the senior adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, Russian state media outlet TASS reported on Monday.

Podolyak took to Twitter on Sunday to mock Iran after it suffered an apparently devastating drone attack at the Isfahan weapons facility, saying that “Ukraine did warn you.”

As evidence of this apparent warning, he included a screenshot in the Ukrainian version of his tweet – but not in the English one – of another

one he made on December 24, 2022.

The tweet reads: “Iran, planning to boost missile, drone supplies for Russia, blatantly humiliates the institutions of international sanctions. Important to abandon nonworking sanctions, invalid UN resolutions concept, & move to more destructive tools – liquidation of plants, arrest of suppliers.”

The ambassador, according to TASS, was asked to clarify Podolyak’s statement. There has, as of yet, been no public statement on the part of Bordeliak or the Iranian government regarding the results of his summons.