Israel's defense minister Friday called on President Bashar Assad to "get rid" of Iranian forces in Syria, warning their continued presence would only cause trouble.
Iran, meanwhile, in its first official reaction to Israeli attacks on suspected Iranian targets in Syria, said Israel's attacks came "under fabricated and baseless excuses."
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Braham Ghasemi added that Damascus has the legitimate right to respond to what it said were repeated violations of the country's sovereignty.
Israeli soldiers walk past tanks in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, near the border with Syria, Thursday, May 10, 2018. Israel says it struck dozens of Iranian targets in Syria overnight in response to a rocket barrage on Israeli positions in the Golan Heights. It was the biggest Israeli strike in Syria since the 1973 war. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A hard-line Iranian cleric threatened his country would retaliate if Israel "does anything foolish."
Israel attacked dozens of suspected Iranian targets in Syria in overnight strikes this week that it said were in response to an Iranian rocket barrage. It was the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies to date. The cross-border exchange gave way to a war of words.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called late Thursday for an immediate halt to "all hostile acts" to avoid "a new conflagration" in the Middle East.
Guterres' comments came as a calm night followed intense attacks on parts of Syria by Israel. Israel has called on the U.N. Security Council and secretary-general to condemn Iran's attack on its positions in the Golan Heights, occupied and annexed by Israel.
The Security Council, deeply divided over Syria, is highly unlikely to issue a statement and as of Friday morning no council member had asked for a meeting.
Speaking while touring the Israeli side of the occupied Golan Heights, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel is not looking for friction. "We did not come to the Iranian border, they came here," he said.
Iran has advisers and experts and has backed tens of thousands of militiamen who are fighting alongside Assad's forces in the civil war. Israel has warned it will not tolerate its archenemy Iran establishing a military presence on its doorstep.
"I will take this opportunity to send a message to Assad: Get rid of the Iranians, get rid of Qasem Soleimani and the Quds Force, they are not helping you, they only cause damage, and their presence will only cause problems and damages," Lieberman said. Soleimani is the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds expeditionary force which is fighting in both Iraq and Syria.
"Get rid of the Iranians and maybe it will be possible to have a different kind of life," Lieberman added.
Israel and Iran have long fought each other through proxies, and with the new exchange each seemed to be sending a warning that a direct clash between them could swiftly escalate.
The scope of the attacks — which Israel called its largest in Syria since the 1973 Mideast war — raised the specter of a full-fledged war between Iran and Israel in Syria, a conflict that could potentially drag the militant Hezbollah and Lebanon into the mix with devastating effects, although both sides appeared to signal they wanted the confrontation to remain contained, at least for now.
The rising tension in Syria came just as the United States decided to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and impose new sanctions, adding to the pressure on Tehran.
Thousands of Iranians protested Friday across the country. Some protesters set a U.S. flag on fire in Tehran with the nuclear deal scribbled on it. Others stomped on a picture of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Although slogans of "Death to America" were few, many Iranians are sincerely angry over the U.S. decision to withdraw from the deal and are siding with hard-liners who long have warned to be suspicious of the West.
In Tehran, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said the Western pressure will backfire, threatening that Israel will pay the price.
"The holy system of Islamic Republic will step up its missile capabilities day by day so that Israel, this occupying regime, will become sleepless and the nightmare will constantly haunt it that if it does anything foolish, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground," the hard-line cleric said during Friday sermons. The worshippers chanted: "Death to America," and "Death to Israel".
Ghasemi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said the direct attacks on Syria come as the government of Assad is regaining control of territories from rebel fighters, accusing Israel and the United States of supporting the opposition which he called "terrorists."
In the latest victory for Assad, Syrian police prepared Friday to take control of three suburbs of the capital Damascus previously controlled by the rebels.
Opposition fighters and their families left Babila, Beit Sahem and Yalda, three southern suburbs that were held by rebels for years, Syrian state media and a war monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the last group evacuated the suburbs Thursday night, bringing the total of those fighters and civilians who left the area since May 3 to a total of 8,400.
Syria's state news agency SANA said opposition fighters who decided to stay in the suburbs will hand over the weapons and return to normal life.
With the capture of the three suburbs, the only area outside government control in Damascus is that of the neighborhood of Hajar al-Aswad and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk that are partially controlled by the Islamic State group.
Government forces have been on the offensive against IS in the area since last month and its capture would boost security in Assad's seat of power.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An apparent Israeli drone attack on a major air base near the central city of Isfahan activated Iranian air defenses early Friday. The strike came just days after Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on Israel.
No Iranian official directly acknowledged the possibility that Israel had attacked, and the Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment. However, regional tensions have been high since the Saturday assault on Israel amid its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its own strikes targeting Iran in Syria.
Speaking at the G7 meeting in Capri, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the U.S. received “last-minute” information from Israel about the attack on Isfahan. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not dispute that, but said: "We were not involved in any offensive operations.”
The apparent attack came on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's 85th birthday. Israeli politicians also made comments hinting that the country had launched an attack.
Air defense batteries fired in several provinces over reports of drones being in the air, state television reported. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects.
“The explosion this morning in the sky of Isfahan was related to the shooting of air defense systems at a suspicious object that did not cause any damage,” Mousavi said. Others suggested the drones may be so-called quadcopters — four-rotor, small drones that are commercially available.
Authorities said air defenses fired at a major air base in Isfahan, which long has been home to Iran's fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats — purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Tasnim news agency published a video from one of its reporters, who said he was in the southeastern Zerdenjan area of Isfahan, near its “nuclear energy mountain.” The footage showed two different anti-aircraft gun positions, and details of the video corresponded with known features of the site of Iran's Uranium Conversion Facility at Isfahan.
“At 4:45, we heard gunshots. There was nothing going on,” he said. “It was the air defense, these guys that you’re watching, and over there too.”
The facility at Isfahan operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, as well as handling fuel production and other activities for Iran's civilian nuclear program.
Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran's nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.
State television described all atomic sites in the area as “fully safe." The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites” after the incident.
The IAEA “continues to call for extreme restraint from everybody and reiterates that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts,” the agency said.
Iran's nuclear program has rapidly advanced to producing enriched uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels since the collapse of its atomic deal with world powers after then-President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord in 2018.
While Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, Western nations and the IAEA say Tehran operated a secret military weapons program until 2003. The IAEA has warned that Iran now holds enough enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons if it chose to do so — though the U.S. intelligence community maintains Tehran is not actively seeking the bomb.
Dubai-based carriers Emirates and FlyDubai began diverting around western Iran about 4:30 a.m. local time. They offered no explanation, though local warnings to aviators suggested the airspace may have been closed.
Iran then grounded commercial flights in Tehran and across areas of its western and central regions. Iran later restored normal flight service, authorities said.
Around the time of the incident in Iran, Syria's state-run SANA news agency quoted a military statement saying Israel carried out a missile strike targeting an air defense unit in its south and causing material damage. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strike hit a military radar for government forces. It was not clear if there were casualties, the Observatory said.
That area of Syria is directly west of Isfahan, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away, and east of Israel.
Meanwhile in Iraq, where a number of Iranian-backed militias are based, residents of Baghdad reported hearing sounds of explosions, but the source of the noise was not immediately clear.
The incident Friday in Iran also sparked concerns about the conflict again escalating across the seas of the Middle East, which have been seeing attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen on shipping over the war in Gaza.
The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center warned ships in the region that they could see increased drone activity in the skies.
“There are currently no indications commercial vessels are the intended target,” it wrote.
The Houthis have launched at least 53 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.
Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen and as shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined over the threat.
The apparent attack also briefly spooked energy markets, sending benchmark Brent crude above $90 before it fell again in trading Friday.
However, Iranian state-run media sought to downplay the incident after the fact, airing footage of an otherwise-peaceful Isfahan morning. That could be intentional, particularly after Iranian officials for days have been threatening to retaliate for any Israeli retaliatory attack on the nation.
“As long as Iran continues to deny the attack and deflect attention from it and no further hits are seen, there is space for both sides to climb down the escalation ladder for now,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
Associated Press journalists Nasser Karimi, Mehdi Fattahi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; and Nicole Winfield in Capri, Italy; contributed to this report.
A passerby, taking on his cellphone, walks past a banner showing missiles being launched from Iranian map in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones early Friday morning, raising fears of a possible Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks past a banner showing missiles being launched, in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones early Friday morning, raising fears of a possible Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. On the missiles, a decorative sign reads: "Allah" (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vehicles drive past an anti-Israeli banner showing missiles being launched, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones early Friday morning, raising fears of a possible Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, April 4, 2024. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones, which were suspected to be part of an Israeli attack in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Iranian women without wearing their mandatory Islamic headscarf walk past a banner showing missiles being launched from Iranian map in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones early Friday morning, raising fears of a possible Israeli strike in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)