Israel considers striking Iran in coming days, US could play logistical role - report
Sources told ABC that the US could play a logistical role, including through intelligence sharing with Israel.
Israel is mulling military action against Iran in the coming days, three sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Thursday.
Amid US reports that Israel is preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and Tehran’s threats to respond harshly to any action, Western diplomats told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that they are concerned about a potential miscalculation between the two nations.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that an Israeli strike on Iran “could very well happen” but that he would not call it imminent and that he would prefer to avoid conflict with Tehran and reach a peaceful solution over its nuclear program.
Sources told ABC that they were not aware of a specific US role in a potential Israeli strike but that Washington could play a logistical role, including through intelligence sharing with Jerusalem.
According to US reports, Israel has completed preparations for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, with indications that a strike could occur in the near future. Additionally, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that a “friendly” regional country warned Tehran of a potential Israeli attack.
On Sunday, talks will take place in Oman between US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, marking the sixth round of discussions on the nuclear deal. Western diplomats described this round as “decisive” amid the US demand for a complete halt to uranium enrichment and Iran’s assertion that enrichment is its “natural right.”
Prior to the talks, Witkoff will meet with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad chief David Barnea.
US Envoy Steve Witkoff says Iran must never be allowed to enrich uranium, develop nuclear threat
The US special envoy declared on Wednesday night that Iran must never be allowed to enrich uranium or develop any nuclear threat. “A nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, as does an Iran armed with a large arsenal of missiles,” he said in a speech at a conference hosted by the United Hatzalah organization.“This is as much an existential threat as the nuclear threat itself. It is an existential threat to the United States, the free world, and all Gulf states. We must stand firm and united against this danger and ensure that Iran never acquires the means to fulfill its deadly ambitions, no matter the cost.”
Meanwhile, Iran leaked materials it obtained, possibly by hacking, to the IranView24 outlet and lashed out on Thursday with a personal attack on both IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi and Israeli Permanent Representative to the IAEA Merav Zafary-Odiz.
Facing likely condemnation and possibly eventual global snapback sanctions against it from a mix of the IAEA Board of Governors, key European IAEA members, and the UN Security Council, Tehran is seeking to discredit Grossi and his recent negative reports against it.
Although the US and Israel have sometimes viewed Grossi as too neutral regarding the Islamic Republic and too unwilling to call it out for nuclear violations, Tehran has viewed him as increasingly siding with Jerusalem.
Tehran’s core issue with Grossi is that once he took over the IAEA in late 2019, he started to pressure it harder about the military aspects of its nuclear program, which the Mossad revealed when it seized Iran’s nuclear archives in 2018.
Grossi’s predecessor, Yukiya Amano, had been much more passive in addressing these allegations, receiving documents from the Mossad in mid-2018 but taking virtually no action to follow up on the documents and allegations for several months and not visiting certain illicit undeclared nuclear sites until almost mid-2019.
In contrast, Grossi had, though slowly, demanded answers from Iran to explain illicit nuclear materials the IAEA found at sites like Turquzabad, as well as other issues at the Varamin and Marivan sites, refusing to accept partial answers that he called “not credible.”
All of this, including new pressure from the Trump administration and Israel and the looming expiration of snapback sanctions in October, has led to an escalation with the Islamic Republic.
Despite its claims to have smoking gun evidence against Israel and Grossi, the documents leaked to IranView24 are either publicly available records regarding Grossi’s visits to Israel while also visiting Tehran or letters and emails between him and Zafary-Odiz to hold routine consultations.
There are also personal emails from Zafary-Odiz, which may have been hacked, about her activities in favor of Israel’s positions and against Iran’s positions – standard activities for an Israeli diplomat.
Nothing in the report actually shows that Grossi departed from his duty to neutrally analyze evidence brought to his attention by all parties.
Also, Grossi has been clear that the IAEA did not just accept the Mossad documents but performed its own independent review and checks.
Reuters contributed to this report.
