Briefing said US may also join any counteroffensive, raising possibility of confrontation between Iran and US
The US may intervene to help Israel defend itself from an Iranian missile attack, its officials said on Thursday, raising the possibility of a direct confrontation not only between Iran and Israel, but also between Iran and the US.
US officials briefed the Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera that the US believes an Iranian attack in reprisal for the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April is imminent, and will be conducted by Iran itself rather than proxy forces. The Israeli attack killed seven senior military officials, including two generals from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
The US also said that its officials had urged regional foreign ministers to put pressure on Iran to show restraint.
Over the past two days the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has consulted counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Turkey.
He also travelled to Damascus to see his Syrian counterparts as well as to Oman, the country most likely to act as the intermediary in sending messages to the US. In Muscat, Amir-Abdollahian said the US could not “shirk its responsibility in fully and absolutely supporting Israel’s combined war crimes”.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, also spoke with the Iranian foreign minister and urged Tehran to show restraint.
The Iranian read-outs of the phone calls did not focus on the possible Iranian response to the Israeli attack but on the need for Gulf States to do more to pressurise Israeli to agree a ceasefire in Gaza.
Amir-Abdollahian is still planning to travel to the UN headquarters in New York next week, raising doubts an Iranian missile attack on Israeli soil is imminent.
