Israel was behind a Saturday night drone attack in the central city of Isfahan which was repelled by Iran’s air defense units, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Citing unnamed American officials and people familiar with the operation, the US-based daily said in a report that “Israel carried out the drone attack on an Iranian military center for research and development midnight Saturday.”
The paper added that the attack targeted “what some sources said was Material and Energy Laboratory of Isfahan with ‘small drones’.”
The report claimed that the drones targeted a munitions factory next to a facility belonging to the Iran Space Research Center, which is under US sanctions for its work on ballistic missiles.
It underlined that the strike was the first to have been conducted by Israel since prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power last month. The report also pointed out that the failed drone attack came amid talks between Tel Aviv and Washington on new ways to “counter” Tehran.
In a statement early on Sunday, the Iranian Defense Ministry announced that its air defense units had fended off a drone attack on a military workshop in Isfahan.
The ministry said one of the workshop complexes had come under attack from a number of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), but the complex’s air defenses successfully repelled the attack.
The ministry underscored that the unsuccessful attack did not cause any loss of life and only led to minor damage to the roof of a workshop. The complex, it added, continues its ordinary operations following the attack.
Israel has over the years threatened on numerous occasions to carry out attacks against Iranian facilities and infrastructure, with Tehran casting Tel Aviv’s threats as part of the regime’s psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic.
‘There will be consequences’
In a post on his Twitter account, Mohammad Marandi, a professor at University of Tehran and a political commentator, reacted to the failed drone attack on Sunday and said “there will be consequences” for perpetrators of the act.
