US, UK prepare as Middle East prepares for Iran-Israel showdown
- Citizens asked to leave Lebanon on ‘any ticket’
The United States has sent warships and fighter jets to the Middle East and advised Americans to leave Lebanon on “any ticket available” amid fears of fresh conflict.
As fears grew that a war between the Iran-Hezbollah axis and Israel could soon break out following the assassination of Hamas’ political leader in Tehran, Britain and the United States urged citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately.
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, told Britons in the region: “Tensions are high, and the situation could deteriorate rapidly. While we are working round the clock to strengthen our consular presence in Lebanon, my message to British nationals there is clear – leave now.”
Meanwhile, the US government urged its citizens in the region to “book any ticket available to them, even if that flight does not depart immediately or does not follow their first-choice route”.
A US aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln has been transferred to the Middle East to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Pentagon officials said.
It emerged on Saturday that Iran has arrested two dozen people including intelligence officers as it hunts down the intelligence leak which led to Israel killing Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The arrests were made at the military-run guesthouse in Tehran where Hanieyh was assassinated, sources told the New York Times.
Staff workers and army officials were also arrested during the raid, which is likely an attempt to compensate for the humiliating security failure.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Haniyeh but has a long history of being able to assassinate its enemies overseas. Some reports suggest the explosives that killed him weighed just 7kg.
The attack was particularly embarrassing for Tehran as it took place at a heavily guarded compound, just hours after Haniyeh attended the swearing-in ceremony of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Experts say the assassination is potentially fatal for the stability of the Iranian regime as it shows it cannot protect allies on home soil.
“The perception that Iran can neither protect its homeland nor its key allies could be fatal for the Iranian regime, because it basically signals to its foes that if they can’t topple the Islamic Republic, they can decapitate it,” Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times.
Iran has vowed revenge for the assassination but it remains unclear how it will proceed. A major attack runs the risk of triggering a full-scale war between Iran and Israel which would be catastrophic for the Middle East.
One of the biggest concerns this time around, diplomats say, compared with April, when Iran launched an unprecedented strike in response to an Israeli provocation, is the “angry silence” from Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, the Wall Street Journal reported.
One Iranian diplomat, briefed by his government, said appeals from countries to avoid escalating the conflict are falling on deaf ears.
“There is no point. Israel crossed all the red lines,” the diplomat said. “Our response will be swift and heavy.”
The regime may launch a barrage of missiles on Israel from Iranian territory, as it did in April.
This would require a coordinated aerial response from Israel’s Western allies and Arab states, to intercept missiles as they fly toward Israel.
Iran may also respond in kind by trying to assassinate a senior commander or other top figure on the Israeli side, either in Israel itself or abroad. Another possibility would be an attack on an Israeli embassy.
Iran has also said Hezbollah, its proxy force in Lebanon, will strike “broader and deeper” civilian and military targets in Israel in response to the earlier killing of Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, in Beirut.
The attack on Shukr had been launched by Israel in retaliation for a missile strike on a football pitch in the occupied Golan Heights which killed 12 children and youths from the Druze community.
An Iranian regime official told CBS: “The [Israeli] regime’s attack on Dahieh in Beirut and the targeting of a residential building marked a deviation from these boundaries. We anticipate that, in its response, Hezbollah will choose both broader and deeper targets, and will not restrict itself solely to military targets and means.”
Iranian TV presenters on Friday night hinted that a major attack on Israel was imminent, predicting “extraordinary scenes and important events”.
“In the coming hours the world will witness extraordinary scenes and very important events,” a presenter of the programme Foreign Policy 1403 said.
“We are just waiting for the decision of our military strategists to see what course of action they recommend,” he added.
Separately, a Hamas military commander has reportedly been killed in an IDF strike along with four others in the West Bank town of Tulkarem. IDF troops entered Tulkarem on the ground and there was an exchange of fire with militants there on Saturday morning.
Also on Saturday, the IDF said it had struck a Hamas “command and control” centre based in a former school in the Gaza Strip. Hamas said 10 Palestinians were killed in the attack.
