Israel really provoked Iran this time! You can talk about anything, but I really didn't expect that the Israeli army would directly bomb the Iranian embassy in Syria, which is a diplomatic institution and is protected by international law. Israel's lawless behavior cannot be washed clean, no matter how much it is washed, so the Western media are too lazy to wash it, and simply cover their ears and steal the bell, not wanting to mention this stubble at all.
Although the Iranian embassy is in Syria, it is equivalent to a part of Iranian territory, and the bombing of this place by Israeli troops is no different from declaring war. If it does not get back into the field, Iran will not only lose face internationally, but will also be unable to account for it at home. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: Israel will be "slapped in the face"! How this slap should be slapped has aroused heated discussions among everyone.
The whole thing, of course, was provoked by Israel first. On April 1, Damascus, the capital of Syria, was very calm, but during the rush hour when people were off work, several loud explosions suddenly came from the Iranian embassy, and in the light of the fire, the embassy's consular office building collapsed, and the smoke was immediately filled.
After the bombing, the United States said that it did not know about it at the first time, so Israel was the only one who was able to evade the Syrian air defense system and do such things. This speculation was quickly confirmed: the Israeli army dispatched F35 stealth fighters and fired six missiles (possibly precision-guided bombs) from the direction of the Golan Heights, directly flattening the consular office building, causing heavy casualties.
Later, a US official said that the United States was not ignorant of the bombing incident, and that Israel had notified the US side before the bombing, but it deliberately did so very late. After the United States learned the news, Israeli warplanes had already taken to the skies.
It is known that a number of senior Iranian generals were killed in the attack. Iran has been in Syria for a long time, and there are many military personnel stationed there, and Israeli intelligence should have information about the personnel in the embassy, so seven Iranian military personnel were killed in one fell swoop, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, commanders of the "Quds Force" of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In particular, Zahedi, who was a subordinate of Soleimani and a fierce general in Iran's overseas military operations, has a very high status in the military. Zahedi is a brigadier general, a very high rank in the Iranian army, only one level below Soleimani, and served as commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. And Rahimi was Zahedi's deputy, and the two men were killed together, and Iran's losses were not insignificant.
Now Iran is hairy. Although Iran and Israel have been fighting openly and covertly in Syria, and both sides have launched missile attacks on each other's targets, they have not been put on the table. Although Iran supports Hamas, Allah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement, which are hostile to Israel, it plays the role of proxy.
The Iranian army has always been targeting targets in Syria, and has never attacked Israel itself, and of course Israel has not openly attacked Iran itself, and the two sides have been bombing each other in Syria tacitly.
Iran is a sovereign state recognized by the international community, and its embassies abroad have the rights enjoyed by diplomatic institutions. Even if Israel's enemies are indeed hidden inside, Israel has no right to attack them. It is really scary to say that Israel has bombed its embassy without regard for any international norms. Moreover, the Israeli army not only blew up, but also had a particularly hard mouth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran will face the consequences if it retaliates against Israel.
Bombing someone's embassy is not allowed to retaliate, and it is thanks to the Israelis that they can say such things. However, although Netanyahu is too addicted, he probably knows in his heart that this matter will not be over, and it is impossible for Iran not to retaliate. Therefore, the Israeli side has taken a series of preventive measures. On 3 April, the Israeli army announced that it would call up reservists to join the air defense forces. On 4 April, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered all combat force personnel to suspend their leave on the basis of an assessment of the current situation.
And on the technical side, the Israeli army began to jam the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals within its territory. On April 4, residents of Tel Aviv, the capital, found that a mobile phone map had located itself in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, about 200 kilometers north of Tel Aviv. This distortion of GPS signals has made it impossible for taxi drivers to navigate, and food delivery apps have been forced to temporarily suspend service. This is clearly an attempt to divert Iranian missiles or drones elsewhere.
The United States, the bigwig behind Israel, is also highly concerned about the bombing of the Iranian embassy. On April 5, a senior U.S. administration official said the U.S. was on "high alert" and predicted that Iran could launch a "major" attack against Israel or U.S. assets in the region as soon as next week, but it was not yet known what tactics Iran would use and what specific plans it would retaliate.
According to another U.S. media report, the U.S. side has obtained intelligence that Iran may use a large number of "Shahed" drones and cruise missiles in retaliatory attacks, and may attack Israeli diplomatic facilities equivalent to the Iranian embassy. It was in this situation that Israel temporarily closed 28 embassies abroad in order to avoid attacks.
The Shahed drone mentioned here refers to the Shahed-136, that is, the "Iranian motorcycle" that shines in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. This kind of drone is very cheap, using a motorcycle engine, the cost of the whole drone is said to be less than 20,000 yuan, but the range can reach thousands of kilometers. Guided by the Global Navigation / Positioning System, it is capable of striking enemy targets in depth. Due to the weight of the warhead reached 50 kg, the power of the explosion was not to be underestimated, and it caused great damage on the territory of Ukraine.
In addition to the "small motorcycles" that can be launched in large quantities, Iran also has several models of drones available. Of course, even more powerful are Iranian missiles, whose ballistic missiles can be described as a must. Their Conqueror 110, Conqueror 313 and other ballistic missiles are not only technically excellent, but also have actual combat experience.
Just on January 16 of this year, Iran fired 11 ballistic missiles at Erbil, the capital of Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria, leveling the Mossad headquarters in the region. It is said that the missile used at that time was the Conqueror 110D. Iran also used such missiles in retaliatory strikes against US military bases in 2020.
The Conqueror 110 series missiles evolved from anti-aircraft missiles, and after Iran's continuous improvement, they are equipped with an inertial + satellite composite guidance system, and the hit error can be within 10 meters, which is quite powerful. In addition to short-range ballistic missiles in this category, Iran also has medium-range ballistic missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, as well as cruise missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers.
These missiles are not Hamas rockets, but actual precision-guided weapons. If Iran uses these missiles to attack the Israeli mainland, the "Iron Dome" with $35,000 per shot alone will certainly not be able to prevent it, and Israel will probably suffer heavy losses. The Israeli military carried out emergency jamming of the GPS signal, fearing that Iranian missiles would use GPS to launch strikes.
However, Iran has always been at odds with the United States, and it is unlikely that the signals used by missiles to navigate will rely on American GPS satellites, after all, in addition to GPS, there are also several major navigation systems available: Galileo in Europe, GLONASS in Russia, and Beidou in China. There is a high probability that Iran will use Russia's global positioning system GLONASS, and the Israeli military will only interfere with GPS signals, which may not play a big role.
But if Iranian missiles do hit Israeli cities or U.S. military bases in the Middle East, they may be playing into Israel's hands. Israel can take the opportunity to drag the United States directly into the war.
In fact, the Americans have quite a few criticisms about Israel's increasingly lawless behavior recently. There are so many Israeli massacres in Gaza that video evidence of Israeli forces shooting innocent civilians abounds on the Internet, and the Western world can hear it even if they cover their ears. And the Israeli army's attack on the charity organization "World Central Kitchen" made Europeans and Americans unbearable.
The World Central Kitchen, an untainted charity, had reported to Israel before leaving for Gaza, even the route was assigned by Israel, and the logo was painted on the roof of the car. As a result, because the Israeli army suspected that there were armed personnel in the car, without verification and notification, they used drones to fire three missiles in succession, killing seven volunteers, all white people from the United States, Australia, Poland and other countries. Even such a thing can be done, no wonder US President Joe Biden is quite unhappy with Netanyahu.
The point is that the United States is now eager to focus on dealing with China, and does not want to spend too much money in the Middle East, and certainly does not want to see a big fight in the Middle East. Iran is actually quite tolerant and cooperative, he is self-aware, and out of consideration of his own national interests, Iran is not willing to directly go to war with the United States and Israel. Even after Soleimani was killed in 2020, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on a US military base, leaving room for not even a single US military to be bombed.
But Israel thinks very differently, and he is bent on dragging the United States and Iran into the water. If Iran does attack Israel itself or U.S. military bases, Israel would be justified in asking the United States to enter the war, which is possible given the fact that the United States is economically and politically controlled by the Jews. If the United States is directly involved in the war, it will inevitably be able to severely damage Iran and anti-Israeli forces such as Hamas and Allah, so that Israel's interests will be guaranteed.
However, Israel is also playing with fire in this way. Once Iran and the United States enter the war, the conflict that was originally confined to Gaza is likely to turn into a large-scale local war, and it cannot be ruled out that more countries will be involved in it, and it is not yet known whether it will be a blessing or a curse for Israel. The United States will also be mired in war and will no longer be able to make trouble in the Asia-Pacific region, which the Biden administration is very unwilling to see. Israel's calculations are very good. Now it will be up to us to see how aggressively Iran retaliates.