NYT: US Armed Forces and IDF placed on high alert in anticipation of Iranian attack
The US and Israel have put their armed forces on high alert amid reports of a possible attack by Iran, the New York Times reported, citing sources.
On Friday, US television channel CBS reported that the US and Israel expect Iran is preparing to strike in response to an attack on its consulate in Damascus.
“US military forces in the region have been put on high alert. Israel has also put its armed forces on high alert, cancelled layoffs for combat units, called up some reservists to air defence units and blocked GPS signals,” the publication wrote, citing knowledgeable sources.
The armed forces in Iran have also been put on high alert, according to two Iranian officials.
On Monday, Syria’s defence ministry reported an Israeli air force airstrike on the building of Iran’s consulate general in Damascus. The consulate building also housed the residence of Iran’s ambassador to the Arab republic Hosein Akbari, he was not injured. According to the Syrian defence ministry, the consulate building was destroyed in the strike. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, the elite units of the Armed Forces) said seven IRGC officers were killed, among them two high-ranking advisory generals, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, and his deputy, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that Israel would pay a heavy price for the attack, while leaders of resistance movements in the region expressed the necessity of deploying all possible resources in confronting Israel to support the Palestinian Hamas movement and other Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip.