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Last weeks announcement was Irans latest move to signal its dissatisfaction with an accord that, in the main, it still adheres to, even though the Trump administration pulled out of it in May 2018 to pursue a campaign of maximum pressureaka renewed sanctions. The administration has pinned its hopes on this policy of forcing Tehran to renegotiate what President Donald Trump had called the worst deal ever. Several days prior to the announcement about the centrifuges, Tehran also blocked an inspector from the International Atomic Energy Association from entering the Natanz nuclear facility for the first time since the nuclear pact, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed in 2015.

None of these actions got much attention. The New York Times buried its story about the increased number of centrifuges on page A8. The Washington Post has relied on Associated Press wire copy, not bothering to publish its own article about Irans actions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that Irans move heralds a breakout effort to build a bomb as soon as possible. (Just a year ago, when the administration moved to reimpose sanctions, he expressed confidence that Tehran would not restart those efforts.) Many experts, though, frame the Iranian action as a way to elicit diplomatic intervention by the Europeans and others to keep the JCPOA intact, as well as to intimidate neighbors. Iran still relies too heavily on trade with Europe, Russia and China, all of whom continue to support the JCPOA. A more justifiable fear is that last weeks step presages another use of force in the Gulf that would further ratchet up the tension, as has happened twice before in recent months.

First, there was the announcement in April of the initial installation of advanced centrifuges, followed by attacks in June on tankers in the Gulf, which U.S. officials have blamed on Iran, and the downing of a $120 million U.S. drone that Iranian officials acknowledge they were responsible for. Then, in July, Iran declared it would no longer limit its enriched uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms and would purify uranium to levels above the 3.67 percent specified in the nuclear agreement. A little more than two months later, a stunning air attack severely damaged Saudi Arabias massive Abqaiq facility and oil field, taking 5 percent of the worlds daily oil production offline. Although Yemens Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, the United States and most Western governments have attributed the attack to Iran, which backs the Houthis.

It seems evident that Tehran is calibrating its actions to send increasingly strong signals. So far, however, nothing has succeeded in moving the White House; Trump has resisted any pressure to retaliate militarily. The obvious questions now, after last weeks announcement about the centrifuges, are will Iran attack again? If so, where? And what will the response be?

The short answer is we dont know, but theres a pattern at work here. In the aftermath of the Iranian announcement last week, Brian Hook, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, announced another raft of sanctions on 700 individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels, and reaffirmed his confidence that this approach would bring Iran to the negotiating table. Pompeo has been equally categorical about Washingtons determination to keep up the pressure.

This suggests we are on course for another unwanted attack somewhere in the regionand that the administrations policy is delivering the opposite of what is needed. Iran shows no sign of succumbing, despite sanctions that have succeeded beyond what most imagined (Iranian oil exports have plummeted from 2.5 million barrels a day to as little as one tenth of that). And the U.S. refusal to strike back militarily after multiple attacks has undoubtedly emboldened Tehran, while our allies in the region peel off to make their own accommodations with Iran.

The Saudis have begun to recognize that the Iranians might target even more of their oil facilities, and the Emiratis have pondered possible damage (financial or physical) to Dubai, which they have long acknowledged to diplomats as a vulnerability. As both countries recognize that Trump is not inclined to any military action needed to deter Iran, their emissaries have begun quietly speaking with Iran. The UAE has told Washington it does not want a war in the regiona big change for a country whose ambassador in Washington had publicly urged a military strike against Iran a few years ago. Saudi Arabia has even declared that it is communicating with the Houthis, a group it has vilified as an Iranian proxy for years.

This is not what success for the United States looks like. And if anyone on the Trump team had studied the history of the U.S.- Iran relationship, they would know that this strategy wont end well. The Clinton administration was committed to its own maximum pressure campaign and, like Trumps administration, threatened to impose secondary sanctions on U.S. allies that maintained trade with Iran in certain goods and services. This happened against the backdrop of a twilight war between our respective intelligence services and the consolidation of U.S. bases in the region. Tehran, however, did not like the feeling it was being cornered in its own neighborhood. In response, it carried out possibly the most devastating truck bomb to date, using an estimated two or more tons of explosives at the U.S. military barracks known as Khobar Towers. Nineteen Air Force members lost their lives. In the crowning irony of the episode, the Saudis slow-rolled the FBI on assistance in the investigation, denying the U.S. access to suspects because the Saudi leadership was fearful that America would start a war with Iran once it had hard evidence of who was behind the bombing.

The lesson is clear: Iranian policymakers believe they must not give in to coercion but rather lash out. The United States, they seem confident, views the situation as less of an existential matter than they do, and thus wont take drastic action to force them to knuckle under.

What would be the sensible move now for the White House? U.S. policymakers dont typically return to the negotiating table with an adversary whose violent provocations have gone unanswered. But given the likelihood that retaliating for Iranian misdeeds would lead to a broader conflict, and given that the United States still has a degree of leverage because of sanctions, the administration should nonetheless come to the table. There is a possibility that the Iranians have already written off a deal with the Trump administration, as President Hassan Rouhanis rebuff of Trumps entreaties to meet at the United Nations would suggest. But, at a minimum, the Iranians wont talk until there is sanctions relief, and the United States should test them on this score. Trump has flirted publicly with delivering such relief. In the best of all worlds, he would progress from flirtation to engagement and negotiate an updated JCPOA, then declare victory and give regional tensions a chance to dissipate.

Any sign of flexibility, however, would probably anger right-wing legislators who are deeply invested in forcing Iran to its knees, and Trump is unlikely to want to alienate the jurors at his potential impeachment trial. We will be left to hope that the Iranians dont miscalculate and carry out another attack on Saudi Arabia or on shipping that elicits a clamor for retaliation, in which case the biggest worry is that Trump could decide now is the time to strike back at Iran.

It is worth considering whether continuing trouble in the Gulf is something Trump, the master of distraction, could resist amid his impeachment inquiry. His laudable aversion to plunging the country into another Middle East war has been amply demonstrated by his refusal to respond to the bombing of tankers, the destruction of the drone and the attack on Abqaiq. But with impeachment hearings underway on Capitol Hill, would he be so restrained? One can well imagine Trump, a man not known for resisting temptation, might be attracted to the ultimate change of subject.

If Trump does take action against Iran, it could be a fateful error. Iran could respond by unleashing the militant group Hezbollah against Israel and by stimulating terrorist attacks around the world. Even if he thought he could go no further than an air campaign, Trump would be making a dangerous gamble. As a rule, aggression demands a response. But when the aggression is a predictable reaction to a misguided campaign of pressureand better alternatives are availableits a lot wiser to turn down the heat rather than fan the flames.

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OPINION | While You Werent Paying Attention, Iran Was Ratcheting Up Tensions in the Persian Gulf - POLITICO

In the summer of 2014, with a campaign of shocking violence, the Islamic State established itself as the most fearsome terrorist organization in the Middle East.

In early June, the extremist group stunned the world by taking control of the Iraqi city of Mosul, home to more than 1.2 million people. Days later, ISIS fighters broadcast scenes from a gruesome massacre of more than 1,500 Iraqi army cadets at a former U.S. military base near Tikrit. By the end of the month, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had declared himself head of a new proto-state, the caliphate, as his fighters continued their genocidal rampage across northern Iraq, killing and enslaving members of the Yazidi minority and seizing Western hostages, among them an American journalist named James Foley.

As the international community groped for a response, ISIS fighters reached the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan, within striking distance of the glass high-rises of the bustling Kurdish capital, Erbil. It was there, from a dusty, remote Kurdish military base nicknamed Black Tiger outside thetown of Makhmour, that ISIS was finally confronted by Kurdish Peshmerga in a battle that began to turn the tide against the extremists.

Makhmour was the first place that we took territory from ISIS, Staff Col. Srud Salih, the Kurdish commander of the Black Tiger base, told The Intercept this summer. The victories of the Peshmerga began from here.

The battle of Makhmour represented another important milestone in the war against ISIS: It was the place where two foreign military interventions began. One was directed by the U.S.-led international coalition, which provided air support and later, heavy weaponry. The other, in the form of ammunition, training, and intelligence support, came from Iran. Over the course of a few short days that August, coalition airstrikes hit ISIS positions in the parched desert hills near Makhmour, leveling the playing field between the heavily armed extremists and the Kurdish fighters.

AKurdish Peshmerga soldier walks past the remnants of an Islamic State position in Makhmour, Iraq, that was hit during the fight between Kurdish andISIS forces in 2014.

Photo: Sebastian Meyer/Corbis via Getty Images

Since the election of Donald Trump, the United States and Iran have grown increasingly fractious, exchanging provocations that have fueled fears of war. But in the early days of the fight against ISIS under President Barack Obama, these longtime rivals were focused on a common goal: halting the Islamic States advance and destroying itsso-calledcaliphate.

While the broad outlines of the conventional war against ISIS have long been known, the details of Irans covert war against the militants have not. A portrait of this secret war emerges from a trove of Iranian intelligence reports provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source. The reports come from Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, the countrys primary intelligence agency.

Alongside the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State, Irans MOIS was waging a parallel, clandestine campaign, spying onISIS gatherings, providing covert aid to its enemies, and working to break its alliances with other insurgent factions, according to the leaked documents.

In many ways, the Iranian intelligence campaign against ISIS mirrored the U.S. strategy for dealing with Iraq. In addition to an overt military confrontation with the group and support for Shia militias and the Iraqi Army, the Iranians also worked to cultivate Sunni and Kurdish partners whom they perceived as moderate or at least willing to work with them. From the outset, the MOIS kept its eyes on the day the war would end, when local partners from all sides would be needed to patch together a functional Iraq.

To an extent, the agency played a good-cop role in contrast to the more brutal measures employed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports directly to Irans supreme leader. While the MOIS has been pragmatic, subtle, and willing to look past sectarianism, the Revolutionary Guards, throughits Iraqi proxies,has been blamed for carrying out waves of extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansing. In some cases,ithas been accused of treating entire Sunni communities as enemies, trapping them in an impossible choice between religious extremists and a hostile Iraqi government.

In many ways, the Iranian intelligence campaign against ISIS mirrored the U.S. strategy for dealing with Iraq.

This sectarian conflict came to a head during the brutal violence of the ISIS war. But for those Sunnis whether militants or politicians willing to accept a place in an Iranian-dominated Iraq, the MOIS showed itself ready to help.

According to the leaked Iranian intelligence documents, there was also frustration on the Iranian side about the lack of direct U.S. cooperation with Tehran in the anti-ISIS war effort.The Iranians noted with approval the impact of U.S. airstrikes against ISIS but wanted to coordinate more closely.

The Americans insistence on not cooperating with Iran in the war against ISIS and not participating in the meetings of the 10 countries of the region the Arabs and Turkey as well as the Western and Arab countries extreme positions on the presence and role of Iran in Iraq has had a negative influence, onesecret report noted.

Although the Iranian contribution was ultimately more modest than that of the Americans, Iran was nimbler in backing the Iraqi Kurds. Irans security institutions are often able to make decisions and act more quickly in an emergency than their U.S. counterparts, who have to navigate a web of bureaucracy, a Kurdish analyst who was present during the battle, and asked for anonymity to discuss issues related to Iran, told The Intercept. When ISIS attacked Makhmour, the Iranian help came first. It took a day or two after the battle began for the Americans to join in with air support.

The punishing American airstrikes made a vital difference in Makhmour, where the Kurdish Peshmerga ultimately triumphed over ISIS and droveit out of the area. But in the weeks and months before the battle, some of the Peshmerga who fought in Makhmour had received assistance from Iranian advisers connected with the MOIS.

Members of the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, explore one of the many tunnels made by ISIS during its occupation of the border city of Sinjar, Iraq, in 2015.

Photo: Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photo

In its propaganda videos and statements, ISIS liked to project an image of complete ideological discipline and authoritarian control. But from early on, the organization appears to have been penetrated by both Iranian and Kurdish intelligence.

On the evening of September 18, 2014, a case officerfrom the MOIS left his base and headed to the home of an asset living in Erbil. At the time, ISIS was still near the height of its power, andthe city was teeming with foreign military and intelligence officials helping coordinate the war effort against the militants. The MOISofficer took precautions to avoid surveillance as he made his way to the meeting. I left the base by foot an hour before holding the meeting and after twenty minutes walking on foot and carrying out the necessary checks, took two taxis through the neighboring streets to the site of the meeting, he wrote in his report.

The Iranian spy had two goals that night: to learn as much as possible about how Iraqs Sunni leaders viewed the ISIS threat and to create a detailed and precise biography of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi through his classmates and people who had been imprisoned with him. The meeting was one of many being conducted by MOIS officerstrying to develop an operational picture of ISIS. In a December 2014 rendezvous with a source in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, another MOISofficer received a flash drive containing information about ISIS, according to one of the reports. The officer instructed the source, who isonly identified as a senior deputy official in Iraqi intelligence, to send the Iranians daily reports on ISIS activities.

A screenshot, taken on July 5, 2014, of a propaganda video released by al-Furqan Media allegedly shows Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi addressing worshippers at a mosque in the militant-held Iraqi city of Mosul. U.S. forces killed Baghdadi last month in northern Syria.

Image: AFP via Getty Images

The MOISs intelligence sources about ISIS were not limited to outsiders; they had penetrated the groups leadership as well. A report provided to the MOIS by a source in Mosul contains an account of internal deliberations from a December 2014 meeting of senior ISIS leaders, including Baghdadi. At the time, ISIS was bracing for an attack from the Iraqi Army, Shia militia groups, and the Kurdish Peshmerga on the groups territories in Nineveh Province. The attack was planned for the early months of 2015, and ISIS leaders feared that it would be heavily backed by both the U.S.-led coalition and Iran.

The prospect of facing so many adversaries at oncebred justified paranoia inside the militant group. It also raised fears that ISIS leaders with past ties to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussain might feed intelligence to the groups enemies, or even defect. Some ISIS amirs who have a Baathist record have established relations with the Kurdish Democratic Party to flee to the Kurdish region and not fall into the hands of the Shia Iraqi army, the MOIS source said, according to the intelligence report, which cites a meeting of the Central Council of the Caliphate presided over by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In at least one case, the militant groups fears had already come to fruition. ISIS commanders in two districts north of Mosul had made contact with American and Kurdish forces, given them GPS coordinates of ISIS positions, and revealed the groups attack plans, according to the MOIS report.

In response, ISIS had cut all telephone and internet connections for commanders in those areas, and the group wanted to further limit the communications of other front-line commanders. One of the districts named in the MOIS document, Zumar, was the site of heavy coalition air activity in support of a Peshmerga offensive during this period.

A sharia court determined that greater control should be exercised over contacts between ISIS amirs and that all means of communication, especially at the fronts, should be cut, the MOIS source reported.

Sunni fighters opposing the Islamic State take positions at the frontline near the ISIS-controlled village of Haj Ali in the southern Mosul countryside on Nov. 19, 2015.

Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum Photos

As Iran worked to weaken the Islamic State, it embarked on a strategy that, deliberately or not, echoed the U.S. playbook for dealing with Iraq. Nearly a decade earlier, the United States had defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq the precursor toISIS by arming Sunni tribal groups opposed to the extremists. This tribal rebellion, termed the Awakening, was credited with helping fracture Al Qaedas tiesto other Sunni Arab militants. The Awakening helped stabilize the country during the final years of the U.S. occupation, allowing a tenuous new political order to take shape.

Like Al Qaeda before it, the Islamic State belonged to a broad coalition of Sunni Arab factions that were ideologically diverse but united in their opposition to an Iraqi government they viewed as sectarian, corrupt, and beholden to Iran. Many of the most powerful non-ISIS factions could be described as ideologically neo-Baathist in their shared longing for a restoration of the pre-2003 order in Iraq.

The groups initially cooperated, but by the summer of 2014, deadly firefights were reported between ISIS and Sunni militants who did not acceptthe groups leadership of the insurgency against Baghdad. Iran was ready to capitalize on these divisions. By the fall of 2014, the MOIS was surveilling and communicating withdisaffected insurgents, with the goal of reconciling them with the Iraqi government and turning them against ISIS.

But the Iranians found that the Sunni militants could be deceptive, the MOIS documents show. In September 2014, the agency intercepted a communication from some of these militants to their followers that included derogatory statements about Iran and called on fighters to take advantage of a recent halt in Iraqi government airstrikes to escalate their insurgency.

We should try to weaken their position and show how untrustworthy they are in claiming that they have changed and become moderate and care for Iraq.

Since we are supposed to meet Baathists next week, and considering the principles fixed by the honorable General Director to get answers from them naturally some of the answers are clear from the text of this statement, a MOISofficer wrote dryly. We should try to weaken their position and show how untrustworthy they are in claiming that they have changed and become moderate and care for Iraq. Put this statement in front of them and then ask them to be explicit and clear in their view.

Iranian officials closely monitored efforts by Sunni Arabs to organize themselves politically throughout the war, including at several meetings held at the Sheraton and Rotana hotels in Erbil in late 2014. An Iranian spywho attended a two-day meeting at the Sheraton in September reported that a former Baath Party member nowliving in the United States came to the meeting bearing an intriguing message: The Americans were willing to support political autonomy for Sunni-majority regions of Iraq once the fighting had ended. The MOIS was deeply concerned about Iraq breaking apart along sectarian lines and viewed any effortsthat might lead to such fragmentationwith suspicion.

Three months later, in December, a delegation of Iraqi politiciansincluding former parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri traveled to Iran for negotiations with high-ranking Iranian officials. The trip went well,according to a MOIS report, but there was a tense moment whenmembers of the Iraqi delegationwere berated by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council. Shamkhani told the visitors that Sunnis in Iraq had already received much more than you deserve, includingthe leadership of numerous ministries, seats in the Iraqi parliament, and control of a large number of militia fighters. Whether you want it or not, he told them, Iran would cleanse Iraqof the presence of [ISIS].

Some members of the Iraqi delegation wereoffended by Shamkhanis remarks, according to the cable.

Initial efforts by the highly unpopular Nouri al-Maliki-led Iraqi government to coax some Sunni tribes nominally allied with ISIS back onto its side with money and weapons had limited results. But a change of leadership in Iraq coupled with the brutality of life under ISIS did eventually lead some Sunni insurgents to explore switching sides. By 2015, the Iraqi government was said to be holding secret talks inQatar and Tanzania with anti-ISIS Sunni insurgents, reportedly mediated by the United States and other countries in the Middle East.

Mohammed Haji Mahmoud, center, with his son Atta, far right, on the front near Kirkuk on Nov. 26, 2014. Atta was killed the following day.

Photo: Archives Hama Haji Mahmoud/The PhotoLibrary of Kurdistan

On the morning of December 7, 2014, a delegation of Iranian intelligence officers paid a condolence visit to the headquarters of the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party, a small movement based in the Kurdish city of Halabja. In addition to the Kurdish Regional Government, Iran cultivated ties with marginal parties like the KSDP that lackedstrong connections and military support from Western powers part of a broader strategy of projectinginfluencethrough textured personal and political relationships across the Middle East. Such ties, sometimes pragmatically cultivated on a nonsectarian basis, have given Iran an advantage in its conflicts with the United States, Israel, and the Gulf Arab countries.

The head of the KSDP, Mohammed Haji Mahmoud, also known as Kaka Hama, is a legendary Kurdish nationalist who spent decades in the mountains of Kurdistan helping lead a resistance movement against the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. When ISIS attacked Kurdistan in 2014, Mahmoud himself joined battles at the front.

In late November of that year, Mahmouds son was killed fighting ISIS near Kirkuk. A week and a half later, spies from the MOIS showed up at Mahmouds office.

A delegation of colleagues of the consulate went to the political office of KSDP and recited [prayers] and offered our condolences and paid our respects to Mohammed Haji Mahmoud over his martyred son who achieved martyrdom in the suburbs of Kirkuk in an attack against ISIS, according to a secret Iranian intelligence report. An Iranian official present expressed the ministrys grief over the death of Mahmouds son and wished his family patience and tranquility.

Mahmoud, far left, on the front near Kirkuk on Nov. 26, 2014.

Photo: Archives Hama Haji Mahmoud/The PhotoLibrary of Kurdistan

In January, about six weeks after their condolence visit, MOIS officers met with Mahmoud again. According to their report, the Kurdish leader thanked the Iranians for providing special military and security training to some 30 of his partys Peshmerga fighters based in Sulaimaniyah. The training, according to the report, had been conducted in honor of Mahmouds son, and the Iranian-backed fighters had been sent to a front near Makhmour, where they helped rout ISIS. They played a good role in defeating the takfiris, Mahmoud told the Iranians, using an Arabic wordtodenoteextremists, and they put into practice the lessons they had learned.

The MOIScase officer who wrote the report expressed satisfaction with Mahmouds comments. God willing, we will benefit from the existence of these brothers in future training in Iraq toward the struggle with ISIS.

Mahmoud could not be reached for comment forthis story.

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire at ISIS militant positions from the frontline in Khazer, west of Erbil, on Aug. 14, 2014.

Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images

The Iranians would turn out to be less than durable friends to the Iraqi Kurds. Their dealings bear some resemblance to the United States own tortured relationship with Kurdish militants in neighboring Syria.

Not long after the war against ISIS began, Tehran started shifting the bulk of its support to the Iraqi central government and its allied Shia militias. The major break came in 2017, when Iraqi Kurds held a referendum on the question of full independence, their long-held dream. Kurdish voters overwhelmingly approved the referendum, but the vote alarmed Iran and other countries in the region that feared Kurdish secession.

Instead of independence, the referendum led to war between the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces. In a reversal of their role during the ISIS war, the Iranians worked against the Kurds, and the Iraqi offensive snuffed out any imminent hopes for Kurdish self-determination. In October 2017, the Peshmerga lost the town of Makhmour again this time to an Iraqi government advance backed by Iran.

Gen. Bahram Arif Yassin was one of the Peshmerga commanders who led the fight against ISIS in northern Iraq. On a grassy hilltop in front of his home in the Kurdish city of Souran, surrounded by his military staff, he reflected on the bitter aftermath of the ISIS war and Kurdistans thwarted independence bid. We expected support after the sacrifices we had made on behalf of the whole world fighting ISIS, Yassin said. Instead, we were opposed by surrounding countries that did not respect the Kurdish peoples voice.

When the independence vote happened, even Turkey didnt close its borders to us, Yassin continued. Iran did.

Although Makhmour remains under Iraqi control today, the sprawling Black Tiger base in the hills outside the town is still manned by Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are based in a few prefabricated bunkers. A giant Kurdish national flag flies from a pole above the base and a large hangar contains Humvees and other armored vehicles provided by the U.S.-led coalition. Modified vehicles taken from ISIS during the battle for Makhmour broil under the glaring sun. Among them are captured Iraqi army pickup trucks retrofitted with rusted armor plates and artillery pieces emblazoned with the black flag of the Islamic State.

Captured ISIS vehicles at the Black Tiger base outside Makhmour in June 2019.

Photo: Murtaza Hussain/The Intercept

The Peshmerga are still fighting ISIS militants hiding in the arid, brown Qara Chokh mountain range nearby, and Kurdish forces say they are grateful for periodic U.S. airstrikes on ISISpositions. Kurdish commanders at the base who fought in the Makhmour battle still consider the U.S.-led coalition their best ally, they said. The support Iran supplied to the Iraqi Kurds against ISIS in 2014 is a distant memory, overshadowed by Irans contribution to the more recent Iraqi conquest of Makhmour.

Irans MOIS predicted this rupture with the Kurds, though the reasons for the split were not what they had expected. The September 2014 report that bemoaned the lack of coordination between the U.S. and Iran in the fight against ISIS also noted that Tehrans global isolation might force the Kurds to keep their distance from Iran when the warwas over. Our country might undergo a bitter experience yet again, the document said, revealing the officers suspicion of even close Kurdish allies, as well as a note of pathos about Irans place in the world.

Ultimately, however, a combination of factors led to Irans renewed isolation. The U.S. decision to pull out of the Obama-era nuclear deal ended Irans brief rapprochement with the West. But it was Irans decision to work against Kurdish independence that squandered any goodwill the Iranians had won during the war against ISIS. Today, Iran finds itself cornered once more.

The destruction of the Islamic State may also prove to be a transient victory. Recent reports have suggested that the militants are quietly regrouping in Iraq, biding their time for a future resurgence. If the extremists do return, the United States and Iranian intelligence may find themselves once more in the strange position of tacitly working together two enemies drawn into alignment by crises in Iraq that both helped generate, but neither seems capable of ending.

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How the US and Iran Became Unlikely Allies Against ISIS - The Intercept

About a month before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Husseins most trusted comrades, sat in his office in Baghdad in an olive green uniform, cigar in hand, wearing house slippers. The man who for decades had served as the public face of high-stakes Iraqi diplomacy offered a political analysis thatmight well have gotten him executed in years past.

The U.S. can overthrow Saddam Hussein, said Aziz, an Iraqi Christian and one of the most senior figures in Saddams government. You can destroy the Baath Party and secular Arab nationalism. But, he warned, America will open a Pandoras box that it will never be able to close. The iron-fisted rule of Saddam, draped in the veneer of Arab nationalism, he argued, was the only effective way to deal with forces like Al Qaeda or prevent an expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

When the U.S. invaded, Aziz was the eight of spades in the card deck the Pentagon created to publicize its high-value targets. He was ultimately captured, held in a makeshift prison at the Baghdad airport, and forced to dig a hole in the ground to use as a latrine. He died in custody of a heart attack in June 2015. But Aziz lived long enough to watch exactly what he warned of come to pass, accusing U.S. President Barack Obama of leaving Iraq to the wolves.

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz stands to attention as the Iraqi national anthem is played at a conference in Baghdad on Dec. 2, 1998.

Photo: Peter Dejong/AP

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq marked the momentwhen the U.S. lost control of its own bloody chess game. The chaosunleashed by the U.S. invasion allowed Iran to gain a level of influence in Iraq that was unfathomable during the reign of Saddam.Secret documents from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, obtained by The Intercept, give an unprecedented picture of how deeply present-day Iraq is under Iranian influence. The sovereignty once jealously defended by Arab nationalists has beensteadily eroded since the U.S. invasion.

The country that Iran assumed influence over had been shattered by decades of war, military occupation, terrorism, and economic sanctions. Iraq is still struggling with the legacy of years of sectarian bloodshed, the emergence of violent jihadi groups, and widespread corruption unleashed by the U.S. invasion and occupation. In the face of this national tragedy, some citizens express nostalgia for the authoritarian stability of Saddams regime. Navigating this chaotic situation is no easy task for any foreign power.

In the years after the 2003 invasion, some U.S. politicians cited the Pottery Barn analogy to justify a continued long-term presence in Iraq. It was the invasion that broke Iraqi society. So, as the analogy went, having broken the country, the United States now needed to buy it. In reality, the U.S. shattered Iraq and ultimately walked away. It was Iran that ended up figuring out what to do with the pieces.

Civilians on foot pass tanks on a bridge near the entrance to the besieged city of Basra, Iraq, on March 29, 2003.

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A little over a decade before George W. Bush decided to overthrow the Iraqi government, his fathers administration had taken a very different path. After mercilessly destroying Iraqs civilian and military infrastructure in a bombing campaign during the 1991 Gulf War, George H.W. Bush waspersuadedthat it would be too dangerous to march on Baghdad. Not because of the potential human costs, or deaths of U.S. soldiers in combat, but because Saddam was a known quantity who had already proven valuable in the 1980s when he attacked Iran and triggered the brutal Iran-Iraq War. During that eight-year conflict, the U.S. armed both countries but overwhelmingly favored Baghdad. More than a million people died in trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. Henry Kissinger put a fine point on the U.S. strategy in that war when he quipped that it isa shame there can only be one loser.

Even after the war had ended, the American fear of Iran outweighed any appetite for regime change in Iraq. So Saddam remained.

Bushs son took a different view. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, high-ranking figures in his administration began falsely connecting Saddams regime to Al Qaeda. In reality, the religious extremists were mortal enemies of the Baathists. But the process forSaddams removal had already been determinedby neoconservatives who had been bent on waging war against Iraq years before 9/11.

Left/top: In Tikrit, Iraq, on April 30, 2003, women of the household watch as U.S. soldiers arrest a man who the commander of the 1st Brigade identified as a prominent Baath Party member. Right/bottom: A U.S. marine watches a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003.Photos: Saurabh Das/AP; Jerome Delay/AP

Within weeks of the 2003 invasion, Saddam was out of power and on the run. A right-wing ideologue who had cut his teeth working under Kissinger was placed in charge of Iraq for a period after the invasion. The countrys new viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, once referred to himself as the only paramount authority figure other than dictator Saddam Hussein that most Iraqis had ever known. Though a longtime diplomat, Bremer had never served in the Middle East and had no expertise in Iraqi politics. But he had become obsessed with the idea that the Baath Party was analogous to the German Nazi Party and needed to be eliminated in its entirety. Under his leadership at the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. implemented one of the most disastrous policies in the modern history of postwar decision-making: liquidating the Iraqi Army as part of a policy known as de-Baathification.

In his book on the Iraq War, Night Draws Near, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid wrote, The net effect of Bremers decision was to send more than 350,000 officers and conscripts, men with at least some military training, into the streets, instantly creating a reservoir of potential recruits for a guerrilla war. (At their disposal was about a million tons of weapons and munitions of all sorts, freely accessible in more than a hundred largely unguarded depots around the country.) A U.S. official, quoted anonymously by the New York Times Magazine at the time, described Bremers decision more bluntly: That was the week we made 450,000 enemies on the ground in Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, during a graduation ceremony for Iraqs new postwar army on Oct. 4, 2003, in Kirkush.

Photo: Marwan Naamani/AFP via Getty Images

The impact of Bremers decision can be discerned in the secret Iranian intelligence cables written more than a decade later. Many of the Sunni insurgents who went to war against the government of Nouri al-Maliki in 2013 are described in the documents as Baathists, a reference to militant groups led by former Iraqi military officers. These groups have nostalgically identified themselves with the pre-2003 political order. The documents show that the Iranians have worked to either destroy them or co-opt them into the fight against the Islamic State.

As the leaked intelligence reports show, the sectarian bloodletting that started with the U.S. invasion has never really ended.

Many former Baathists also found themselves fighting in the ranks of ISIS itself, an organization whose military leadership has included senior officials from Saddams disbanded military.

De-Baathification coincided with another ugly development in Iraq: the rise of sectarian politics. The United States played a critical role in this phenomenon as well. To take one example, the U.S. occupation authorities after the invasion went on the offensive against a Shia cleric named Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr, whose father and brothers were assassinated by Saddams henchmen, was an Iraqi nationalist who spoke the language of the people, though he was often at odds with other Shia clerical leaders. Iranian intelligence cables from 2014 cite pro-Iranian individuals in Iraq expressing continued frustration with Sadr for refusing to go along with their program. He remains a thorn in the side of the current Iraqi government and Iranian interests generally, despite having lived and studied inIran for many years.

Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr delivers Friday prayers at the mosque in Kufa, Iraq, on July 11, 2003.

Photo: Scott Peterson/Getty Images

Following the U.S. invasion, Sadrs popularity rose after he organized social services and infrastructure to address the abysmal conditions faced by Iraqis, particularly in the Shia slums that had been brutally repressed by Saddam. When the Sunni city of Fallujah was first attacked by the U.S. in April 2004, following the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries, Sadr organized blood donations and aid convoys and condemned the American aggression. For a brief moment, the U.S. had very nearly united Shia and Sunni forces in a war against a common enemy.

This situation was untenable. By 2005, the U.S. had become fully invested in policies that greatly exacerbated sectarianism in Iraq. It began arming, training, and funding Shia death squads that terrorized Sunni communities in a war that altered the demographic makeup of Baghdad. As the position of the Sunnis became increasingly dire, groups began to emerge that grew more and more extreme, including Al Qaeda in Iraq and its successor, the Islamic State.

As the leaked intelligence reports show, the sectarian bloodletting that started with the U.S. invasion has never really ended. As late as 2014, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security was documenting the continued violent cleansing of Sunnis from areas around Baghdad by Iraqi militias associated with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iraqi security forces try to push back anti-government demonstrators to Tahrir Square on Nov. 11, 2019, using tear gas and bullets to prevent the occupation of bridges in downtown Baghdad.

Photo: Laurent Van der Stockt/Getty Images

When the Obama administration conducted a made-for-television withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, large swaths of the country were still in a state of political and humanitarian collapse. The Iraqi state that had existed before the war had been utterly destroyed. For better and for worse, Iran has sought to fill the gaping void in Iraq that Washingtons policies created. Out of the rubble of the country, Iranian leaders saw an opportunity to create a new order one that would never againthreaten them the way Saddam Husseins regime had.

The protests now paralyzing Iraqi cities are a vivid demonstration of how unpopular Iranian policies have been in Iraq. Several hundred demonstrators have been killed by security forces firing live ammunition into crowds. The sovereignty of Iraq was effectively annihilated by the 2003 U.S. invasion, but the idea of an Iraqi nation is still cherished by young people in the streets braving bullets to assert their independence.

Irans aggressive approach toward Iraq has to be seen in the context of history. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any rational nation-state actor that would not have pursued a similar path given the same circumstances. The invasion led to fears in Iran that the next stop for the U.S. military would be Tehran. These fears were heightened after the Bush administration rebuffed a proposed grand bargain from Iran in 2003 that offered talks aimed at resolving the differences between the two sides. Instead, the United States continued to treat Iran as an enemy and pursued a path of occupation in Iraq that left in its wake a trail of failures and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.

That Iran would seize an opportunity to assert its influence in Iraq is no shock. While Irans role has been far from positive, the United States has long since lost any claim to be a legitimate broker regarding the future of either country. In 1963, the U.S. helped initiate Iraqs long nightmare when it aided the overthrow of the popular government of Abdel Karim Kassem, who sought to nationalize Iraqi oil and create social welfare programs.The U.S. supported the ascent of Saddamand continued toback his regime over the years, mainly as a bulwark against Iran, even in the face of high-profile atrocities like the gassing of Kurdish civilians in the city of Halabja and the massacres of Shia Iraqis following the Gulf War.

For more than six decades, the U.S. has played a central role in fomenting disasters that have destroyed the lives of entire generations in Iraq and Iran.Any criticisms of Irans role today cannot efface this ugly record. How Iraqis respond to the information about Irans secret dealings in their country is their business. Perhaps there are international organizations and countries whose advice and counsel would be welcome. But given its atrocious legacy in Iraq, the United States should not be among them.

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From the Rubble of the US War in Iraq, Iran Built a New Order - The Intercept

They were hardly kindred spirits. In fact, they stood on opposite sides of one of the worlds fiercest geopolitical divides. Yet in a secret effort at detente, two of the most formidable organizations in the Middle East held a previously undisclosed summitat a Turkish hotel to seek common ground at a time of sectarian war.

The 2014 summit brought together theforeign military arm of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force, and the Muslim Brotherhood, a sprawling Islamist political movement with significant influence throughout the region.

TheQuds Force represents the worlds most powerful Shia-dominated nation, while the Muslim Brotherhood is a stateless but influential political and religious force in the Sunni Muslim world. The Trump administration designated the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization in April, and the White House has reportedly been lobbying to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the list as well.

The disclosure that two such polarizing organizations on either side of the Sunni-Shia divide held a summit is included in a leaked archive of secret Iranian intelligence reports obtained by The Intercept.

There were public meetings and contacts between Iranian and Egyptian officials while Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt from 2012 to 2013. But Morsi was forced from power in a coup supported by the Egyptian Army in July 2013 and later arrested. The regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi launched a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, and many of its leaders have since been imprisoned in Egypt or are living in exile.

An Iranian intelligence cable about the 2014 meeting provides an intriguing glimpse at a secret effort by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian officials to maintain contact and determine whether they could still work together after Morsi was removed from power.

A supporter of Egypts ousted President Mohamed Morsi reads the Quran next to a tent outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, where protesters established a camp, in August 2013 in Cairo.

Photo: Khalil Hamra/AP

The cable about the summit, from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, reveals the fraught political dynamics that separate powerful Sunni and Shia organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Quds Force. Above all, the cable and the story of the summit expose the maddening complexities of the political landscape in the Middle East and show how difficult it is for outsiders, including U.S. officials, to understand whats really going on in the region.

On the surface, the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood would appear to be archenemies. The Quds Force has used its covert power to help Iran expand its influence throughout the Middle East, backing Shia militias that have committed atrocities against Sunnis in Iraq, while siding with the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war. The Muslim Brotherhood, by contrast, has been a key player in Sunni Arab politics for decades, bringing a fundamentalist Islamist approach to a long battle against autocratic governments in Egypt and elsewhere. Along the way, extremists have left the Muslim Brotherhood to form splinter groups, like Hamas, that have sometimes veered into terrorism.

The summit came at a critical moment for the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood, which may explain why the two sides agreed to talk.

But the summit came at a critical moment for both the Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood, which may explain why the two sides agreed to talk. When the meeting was held in April 2014, the Islamic State was tearing across the Sunni-dominated regions of northern Iraq. The Iraqi Army was melting away in the face of the terrorist groups brutal tactics, and ISIS was threatening the stability of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

The threat of ISIS prompted the Quds Force to intervene on behalf of the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq. The Quds Force began leading Shia militias into battle against ISIS, but Maliki was widely seen as an Iranian puppet and had stoked deep anger and resentment among Iraqi Sunnis. He would soon be pushed aside.

At the same time, the dream of the Arab Spring had turned into a nightmare. War was raging in Syria while in Egypt, the ouster of Morsis Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government had led to a new dictatorship under Sisi. Morsi died in an Egyptian courtroom in June after nearly six years in solitary confinement.

Weakened by its losses in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood probably viewed an alliance with the Iranians as an opportunity to regain some of its regional prominence.

The Muslim Brotherhood-Quds Force summit unfolded against the backdrop of deepening sectarian divisions in Iraq as ISIS gained strength. The Shia Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi, took most of Tikrit, Iraq, from ISIS control in April 2015.

Photo: Sebastian Backhaus/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

What neither side knew was that there was a spy in the summit. Irans MOIS, a rival of theRevolutionary Guards within the Iranian national security apparatus, secretly had an agent in the meeting who reported everything that was discussed. The MOIS agent not only attended but acted as coordinator of this meeting, according to the MOIS cable. The MOIS envied the Revolutionary Guards power and influence and secretly tried to keep track ofthe Guards activities around the world, the leaked archive shows.

Turkey was considered a safe location for the summit, since it was one of the few countries on good terms with both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the Turkish government still had to worry about appearances, so it refused to grant a visa to the highly visible chief of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, according to the MOIS cable. With Suleimani unable to enter Turkey, a delegation of other senior Quds Force officials led by one of Suleimanis deputies, a man identified in the cable as Abu Hussain attended the meeting in his place.

The Muslim Brotherhood was represented by three of its most prominent Egyptian leaders in exile: Ibrahim Munir Mustafa, Mahmoud El-Abiary, and Youssef Moustafa Nada, according to the document. (After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration and the United Nations suspected that Nada had helped finance Al Qaeda; his bank accounts were frozen and his movement restricted. In 2009, the U.N. sanctions against him were lifted because no proof of his alleged ties to terrorism could be found.)

In a recent interview, Nada told The Intercept: I never attended such a meeting anywhere. I never heard about such a meeting anywhere. Mustafa and El-Abiary could not be reached for comment.

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood await the arrival of Brotherhood parliament members during the first session of theEgyptian Parliament on Jan. 23, 2012, in Cairo.

Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum Photos

The Muslim Brotherhood delegation opened the meeting with a boast, pointing out that the outfit has organizations in 85 countries in the world. Perhaps that was an effort to counter the Iranian governments support for the Quds Force, since the Muslim Brotherhood had no similar national power backing it up.

Differences between Iran as a symbol and representative of the Shia world and the Muslim Brotherhood as a representative of the Sunni world are indisputable, the Brotherhoodmembers noted, according to the MOIS cable. But they emphasized that there should be a focus on joint grounds for cooperation. One of the most important things the groups shared, the Brotherhood representatives said, was a hatred for Saudi Arabia, the common enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.

Perhaps, the Brotherhood delegation said, the two sides could join forces against the Saudis. The best place to do that was in Yemen, where an insurgency by the Iranian-backed Houthis against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government was about to escalate into full-scale war.

In Yemen, with the influence of Iran on Houthis and the influence of the Brotherhood on the armed tribal Sunni factions, there should be a joint effort to decrease the conflict between Houthis and Sunni tribes to be able to use their strength against Saudi Arabia, the Brotherhood delegation argued.

One of the most important things the groups shared, the Muslim Brotherhood representatives said, was a hatred for Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood wanted peace in Iraq, the delegation said. If there was one place in the region where help bridging the Sunni-Shia divide was needed, it was there, and maybe the Brotherhood and the Quds Force could cooperate to stop the war.

On Iraq, it is good to lessen the tension between Shia and Sunni and give Sunnis a chance to participate in the Iraqi government as well, the delegation said, according to the MOIS cable.

While denying any knowledge of the 2014 meeting, Nada said that the Muslim Brotherhood does want to reduce tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, as was suggested by the cable. As far as I know, [the Muslim Brotherhood] are interested to defuse, not only reduce, any conflict between Sunni and Shia, Nada said.

But the Brotherhood also recognized that there were limits to regional cooperation with the Quds Force. Syria, for example, was such a complicated mess thatthe Brotherhoodsimply threw up its hands. Of course, the issue of Syria currently is out of the hands of Iran and the Brotherhood, and there is nothing particular to be done about it, the cable noted.

And while the Muslim Brotherhood had been pushed out of power the year before the summit by the Egyptian Army, the group didnt want Iranian support in Egypt. On the issue of Egypt, we as Brotherhood are not prepared to accept any help from Iran to act against the government of Egypt, the delegation said. The Brotherhood leaders probably recognized that they would be discredited in Egypt if they sought Iranian aid to regain power in Cairo.

Despite their apparent eagerness to forge an alliance, the Brotherhood leaders still managed to insult the Quds Force officials, according to the MOIS cable. During the meeting,the delegation emphasized that the Brotherhood was committed to a reformist and peaceful approach to change in the Middle East. The observation seemed to imply that the Quds Force was not.The delegation then quickly added that members of the Brotherhood have trained ourselves to be more patient than Iranians.

Members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march in front of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis mausoleum outside Tehran on Sept. 22, 2011, during an armed forces parade marking the 31st anniversary of the start of the Iraq-Iran War.

Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP

The Brotherhood has indeed historically been averse to violence, in contrast to the Quds Force, which is part of a military organization. Some experts have objected to the Trump administrations desire to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, arguing that it does not engage in terrorist activities.

The fact that the Trump administration has not [designated the Muslim Brotherhood] suggests that maybe rationality won the day, observed Ned Price, a former CIA official. To say you are going to designate the Muslim Brotherhood misrepresents what the Muslim Brotherhood is today, and it risks partnerships we have in countries where the Muslim Brotherhood does have influence.

In one of his last columns in the Washington Post before he was murdered, Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi criticized the Trump administration for targeting the Muslim Brotherhood and for failing to understand that it played an essential democratic role in the Middle East. The United States aversion to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is more apparent in the current Trump administration, is the root of a predicament across the entire Arab world, Khashoggi wrote in August 2018, just two months before his death at the hands of a hit team in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes.

Maybe the Muslim Brotherhood leaders decided to be candid with their Iranian counterparts during the summit because they could already sense that the Quds Force representatives were not really interested in forming an alliance. That is certainly how the meeting played out. In fact, it soon became clear that the two sides were talking past each other.

Friends of the Quds Force who were present in this meeting disagreed that there should be an alliance of Shia and Sunni, according to the MOIS report on the meeting. At the same time, somewhat mysteriously, the Quds Force representatives insisted that they never had any differences with the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood representatives were clearly irked by that unrealistic statement. This view was not accepted by the Brotherhood delegation, the cable noted.

Despite the apparent failure of the talks, the MOIS agent spying on the summit noted that he was willing to travel again to Turkey or Beirut to be present in any follow-up meetings. It is not clear from the leaked archive whether further meetings of this kind occurred.

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Iran's Quds Force and the Muslim Brotherhood Considered an Alliance Against Saudi Arabia - The Intercept

Update: Israel strikes dozens of Iranian and Syrian targets following rocket barrage

Four rockets fired from Syria were intercepted over the Golan Heights by the Iron Dome missile defense system, the Israeli military said early Tuesday. According to sources in Israel's defense establishment, the rockets were fired following a command from Iran.

Haaretz Weekly Ep. 49Haaretz

Shortly thereafter, explosions were heard in Damascus, a week after another Israeli strike targeted a top Palestinian militant in the Syrian capital.

Later Tuesday morning, Syria's Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israel fired five missiles toward targets in southern Damascus. The report said that Syrian air defenses had intercepted some of the missiles, while others did manage to strike some targets. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The area targeted, the Observatory for Human Rights noted, is populated by Hezbollah and pro-Iran militiamen.

The military said that there no damage was caused to Israeli communities after rocket sirens awoke residents there early in the morning. There was no immediate official comment from Syria, but the SANA state news agency reported explosions were heard near Damascus International Airport. It was unclear how reliable the reports were and whether Israelindeed struck in that area.

>>Syrian rockets fired at Israel are part of Iran's new deterrence policy

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Following the overnight developments, freshly-appointed Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he will hold a security consultation with the Israeli military's chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, as well as with other top army brass at the Israel Defense Forces' headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Foreign media have reported that over the past couple of months, Israeli strikes in Syria and Iraq have significantly decreased. Israeli intelligence have assessed recently that Iran decided to respond resolutely to any Israeli action against it or organizations affiliated with it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at length lately about the uptick in threats emanating from Tehran, and has warned that Israel will hit Iranian targets if Iran carries out moves against Jerusalem.

The Israeli army's policy is to respond overtly to any attack from Syria. Usually, Israel responds quickly to such attacks, and has admitted in the past to carrying out retaliatory strikes.

Last week, Israel launched a missile attack targeting the home of an Islamic Jihad official in Damascus, killing one of his sons, Syrian state media said. Islamic Jihad said the target was the home of political leader Akram Al-Ajouri.

The move came after Israel's targeted assassination of top Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata, who was killed with his wife Asma in the Gaza Strip.

In August, Israel said In a rare confirmation that it had struck in Syria to thwart a drone attack by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force. Syrian opposition activists reported three deaths in the attack.

The Israeli army said the foiled attack entailed launching several drones at targets in northern Israel.

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Israel intercepts four Syria rockets believed to be fired on Iran's orders - Haaretz