Iran & Israel on Brink of All-Out Conflict

(The Guardian) The White House did not release any further details on the “viable threat” of an impending attack by Iran on Israel.

“I can’t speak to what the intelligence picture tells us in terms of the size, scale, scope of what that attack might look like, except to say that we’re taking this seriously,” said John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson.

US officials have said that Washington and Tehran have been exchanging messages in recent days, including a message from Iran warning the US to stay out of a Israel-Iran conflict, which elevated the level of alarm in the administration.

Kirby would not go into details about US messaging but said it included emphasis on America’s “iron clad” commitment to Israel’s security, the phrase used by Joe Biden earlier this week. Kirby added: “It has also been made clear that we will do what we have to do to protect our own people and our own facilities as appropriate. I think I just need to leave it at that.”

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More on the White House’s warning on the “viable threat” of an impending attack by Iran on Israel:

Reporters pressed John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, on why the US does not release more detailed intelligence as it did in the run up to Russia full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He said the White House was “comfortable” with the messaging it had put out. But he added: “What we are not going to sit back and be comfortable on is knowing exactly what this is going to look like. And that’s why we are working so intensively to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself. And we have had conversations with others in the region too. Nobody’s sitting back and resting easy on this. It’s a serious threat. We’re taking it seriously and we believe that it’s best for those conversations to happen away from the public eye so that we can make sure Israel is as prepared as possible.”

(The Guardian) Reports of vessel being boarded near Strait of Hormuz
A British maritime organisation warned Saturday that a vessel may have been boarded by an unknown party near the crucial strait of Hormuz, reports the Associated Press (AP).

The warning from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) offered no details about the boarding in the Gulf of Oman off the Emirati port city of Fujairah.

The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the west, particularly after a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

According to the AP, Iran did not immediately acknowledge seizing any vessel, nor was there any report carried by state media about the incident. However, Iran since 2019 has engaged in a series of ship seizures and had attacks on vessels attributed to it amid ongoing tensions with the west over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The Gulf of Oman is near the strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil passes. Fujairah, on the United Arab Emirates’ eastern coast, is a main port in the region for ships to take on new oil cargo, pick up supplies or trade out crew.

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Iran blamed after ship boarded on strait of Hormuz
A video seen by the Associated Press (AP) shows commandos raiding a ship near the strait of Hormuz by helicopter on Saturday, an attack a Middle East defence official attributed to Iran amid wider tensions between Tehran and the west.

According to the AP, the video showed the attack earlier reported by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). Earlier updates from the UKMTO offered no details about the boarding in the Gulf of Oman off the Emirati port city of Fujairah, except that the vessel had been “reported to have been seized by regional authorities”.

Iran did not immediately acknowledge seizing any vessel, nor was there any report carried by state media about the incident.

The defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity with the AP to discuss intelligence matters, shared the video with the news agency. In it, the commandos are said to have descended on to a stack of containers sitting on the deck of the vessel.

The AP say that a crew member on the ship could be heard saying: “Don’t come out.” He then tells his colleagues to go to the ship’s bridge as more commandos come down on the deck. It adds that, one commando can be seen kneeling above the others to provide them potential cover from fire.

Though the AP could not immediately verify the video, it said that it corresponded to known details of the boarding, and the helicopter involved appeared to be one used by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, which has carried out other ship raids in the past.

The AP report that the vessel involved is likely the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, a container ship associated with London-based Zodiac Maritime. Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group, it adds. Neither MSC nor Zodiac immediately responded to a request for comment by the AP.

According to the news agency, MSC Aries had been last located off Dubai heading toward the strait of Hormuz on Friday and the ship had turned off its tracking data, which has been common for Israeli-affiliated ships moving through the region.

(The Guardian) Dutch airline KLM will no longer fly over Israel and Iran, Dutch press agency ANP reported on Saturday, citing a KLM spokesperson.

KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM, said the move was a precaution, referring to the rising tensions between Iran and Israel, but added that it would continue flying to Tel Aviv, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast.

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Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Tehran is conducting piracy and should be sanctioned for it, after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz, reports Reuters.

“The Ayatollah regime of Khamenei is a criminal regime that supports Hamas’s crimes and is now conducting a pirate operation in violation of international law,” Katz said.

“I call on the EU and the free world to immediately declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps as a terrorist organization and to sanction Iran now,” he added.

(The Guardian) Benjamin Netanyahu: 'Whoever harms us, we will harm them'
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has released the following statement on Saturday evening amid Iran’s launch of drones towards Israel: In recent years, and especially in recent weeks, Israel has been preparing for a direct attack by Iran.

Our defensive systems are deployed; we are ready for any scenario, both defensively and offensively. The State of Israel is strong. The IDF is strong. The public is strong.

We appreciate the US standing alongside Israel, as well as the support of Britain, France and many other countries. We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination.

Citizens of Israel, I know that you also are also level-headed. I call on you to follow the directives of IDF Home Front Command. Together we will stand and with God’s help – together we will overcome all of our enemies.”

(The Guardian) Jordan’s air defence is ready to shoot down any Iranian aircraft that violate its airspace, Reuters reports.

Two regional security sources have said the army was also in a state of high alert and radar systems were monitoring drone activity.

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Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has vowed that Israel’s “malicious Zionist regime will be punished” following Iran’s launch of drone attacks against Israel.

In a video on X, Khamenei said: The malicious regime itself, which is all malice, evil and error, added another mistake to its own errors by launching an attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

The consulate and embassy offices in any country where they exist are regarded as the soil of the country to which the embassy belongs. Attacking our consulate is like attacking our soil …vThe malicious regime has made a wrong move in this case. It should be punished and it will be punished.