WASHINGTON (TND) — Iran has vowed to respond to an Israeli strike of an embassy complex in Syria earlier this week in yet another development that is risking a broader conflict from breaking out in the Middle East as Israel continues its war against Hamas.
An airstrike destroyed a building it Iran’s embassy complex in Syria, killing at least seven officials that included top commanders in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards. The death of Mohammed Reza Zahedi is one of the most high-profile IRGC target killed since U.S. forces assassinated Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
Fighting between Israel and Iran’s proxy forces, which include Hamas, have ramped up along since the outbreak of the war. It is also consistent with Israel’s past strategy of trying to degrade the militia forces, but the death of such a high-profile target has sparked a swift response from Tehran and promises to enact revenge against Israel, which is also waging a ground assault in Rafah amid growing international pushback on the humanitarian toll of the war.
“We will make them regretful about the crime and similar acts,” Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, according to Iran state media.
Tensions have been high in the Middle East since Hamas launched a terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the war. The drone strike has ramped those up even further and is concerning intelligence and defense experts that it could be the step that leads to a broader conflict.
“How things shake out over the next few days — if Iran decides to do a public response, and who they use to do it, and where and what they attack — that’s where this thing could tip over that precipice and then we could head to a wider escalation. Once we go that far, I’m not sure how we can stop it,” said Mark Chandler, former director of Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East and Africa Center and professor of practice at Coastal Carolina University.
Israel has not confirmed whether it launched the attack, though the Pentagon has said it has assessed Israel carried out the airstrike and leaders of Iran and Syria have also claimed it was behind the strike.
The U.S. told Iran it wasn’t involved in the strike as it sought to minimize the risk that American troops in the Middle East are now facing as a result of the attack. Some of Iran’s leadership has placed blame for the Damascus strike on the U.S. for being a close ally of Israel, which intensifies risks of an attack targeting U.S. troops.
“Tensions being high in the region, we wanted to make it very clear in private channels that the U.S. had no involvement in the strike in Damascus,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said during a news conference on Tuesday.
American troops have already been targeted as a result of the war, with a drone attack in Jordan killing three American soldiers and injuring at least 40 others. That attack was met with retaliatory strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq to discourage Iran from continuing to target Americans.
Keeping the war from spreading beyond Israel and Gaza has been a priority for the U.S., frequently sending warnings to other terrorist groups in the region that seek to launch more attacks in the chaos of the war and bolstering its presence in the area with aircraft carriers and missile defense systems.
What the Iranian response could look like is hard for analysts to predict with Iran and its forces not known for being predictable actors and a wide array of missiles and other weapons that could be targeted at Israeli and American forces in the coming days and weeks.
Iran could use Hezbollah, one of its most powerful proxy forces, to launch strikes as the group has also already vowed consequences. The group has a wide arsenal of missiles that could be used in an attempt to overwhelm Israeli air defense systems.
Tehran could also use its own missiles to retaliate, which may create the greatest risk for a wider conflict with added pressure on Israel to continue to escalate in response.
While Israel has been engaged in fights with Iran’s proxy forces, the attack on the embassy is an escalation of those efforts that could risk steeper retaliation.
“This seems to be Israel’s effort to prevent the escalation of war from the north,” Chandler said. “This is a risky method of escalating to not escalate, which it does sound counterintuitive, to go after this. If they miscalculated this time, we could see that spread of fighting.”