The US intelligence community is digging through its stores of data and tasking the nation’s spy agencies to hunt for fresh clues to determine whether Iran played a direct role in Saturday’s deadly attack on Israel by Hamas, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.
The US intelligence community is digging through its stores of data and tasking the nation’s spy agencies to hunt for fresh clues to determine whether Iran played a direct role in Saturday’s deadly attack on Israel by Hamas, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.
Even as the US believes Iran is “complicit” in the attack, given its years of support to the Palestinian militant group, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the administration still does not have direct evidence linking Tehran to the planning and execution of the assault.
“We’re looking to acquire further intelligence,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House. “But as I stand here today, while Iran plays this broad role – sustained, deep and dark role in providing all of this support and capabilities to Hamas – in terms of this particular gruesome attack on October 7, we don’t currently have that information.”
Privately, multiple intelligence, military and congressional officials with access to classified intelligence tell CNN the same thing that Sullivan said publicly: No direct evidence has been found indicating Iran was directly involved.
“Waiting to see if we get a smoking gun in the intel,” said one military official.
Israeli intelligence is also going back and examining previous evidence, a senior Israeli official told CNN.
“I doubt that Iran had no knowledge whatsoever,” the official said. “We’ve seen meetings and we’ve seen the close coordination between them.”
US and Israeli intelligence had no advance warning of the attack – something US officials say is stunning given the scale of the assault – and now, the Biden administration is treading cautiously.
‘Where else would it have come from?’
Iran has for years been Hamas’ chief benefactor, providing it with tens of millions of dollars, weapons and components smuggled into Gaza, as well as broad technical and ideological support.
Hamas maintains a degree of independence from the Iranian regime. Tehran doesn’t have advisers on the ground in blockaded Gaza, according to former security officials and other regional analysts, and it doesn’t command the group’s activities.
But the unprecedented scale of the weekend’s attack – combined with analysts’ broad belief that Iran sees the attack as a net positive for its interests in the region – have fueled questions of whether Hamas could have pulled off such a sophisticated operation without direct Iranian assistance.
“We spend a lot of time and resources worrying about what Iran is doing and how to counter what Iran is doing,” a State Department official said. “This certainly opens up a new chapter in that discussion.”
In 2022, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said publicly that the group had received about $70 million from Iran that year and that it used the money to build rockets.
