Explosions were heard in the Iranian city of Isfahan on the night connecting the 18th to 19th of April. Global public opinion evaluated these as an Israeli retaliation to the Iranian attack on Israel on the 13th of April.
We asked Dr. Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh on the actual situation in Iran. Gholamzadeh is the Tehran Municipality’s responsible for international relations.
What do we know what happened exactly in the last night?
You know, we don’t have accurate information so far, but based on the reports and the things that we are hearing from the social media, observation of the people and the reports that are coming inside Iran is that there were some actually quadcopters infiltrating into the airspace and trying to attack a place in Isfahan, actually an air base in Isfahan.
But they were downed by the defense system and the recording from the people in the city of Isfahan shows that the defense system is shooting at some targets at the sky during the night. And based on the reports and the hearings from my sources in the city of Isfahan, the only thing that has happened is that one of the helicopters has hit an office building and has run into a window of an office building. That was the only casualty. So, we don’t have any other reports of certain casualties.
And unlike what Western mainstream media like CNN, ABC, CBS are reporting, there have been no missile activities. No missile has been fired upon Iran. It was not even drones that can be sent, like Iran did, from one country to another. It was actually quadcopters, which seems that they were used by MOSSAD agents inside Iran.
And it is the same thing that has happened in the past as well. So, I think they have done some sabotage, have tried to do some sabotage just like before, but with a lot of media propaganda around it.
No cross-border attack
So how is now the current situation? Just to confirm, you say that your information suggests that this was organized from within the Iranian territory, right? Not from the territory of Israel.
Of course, because as I said, it is a quadcopter that is being used and quadcopters have a very limited range of control, just a few hundred meters or at most, a few kilometers. So, it’s not something that can be carried out from outside the Iranian border.
How do you describe the general atmosphere right now in the city of Tehran where you are and in the country in general? Is there any kind of panic?
Actually, you might not believe that, but I woke up this morning and read a lot of funny things making fun of this so-called attack because they are comparing actually the Iranian missiles versus these quadcopters that are being used.
It’s just an atmosphere of fun across the country, and you can see it in the social media, the media among the people who are talking about that. Everyone is just laughing at what has happened there. No signs of fear.
Iran will react similarly: If it’s a sabotage, there will be a sabotage
And what do you think? How will the Islamic Republic of Iran react to this attack? What’s your guess on that?
Iran has reiterated that it’s going to respond the way any sabotage or any attack or any hostility would occur against it. So, if it is a sabotage, there might be some sabotage. Iran is not going to take it very seriously, to launch a missile against that, because as I said, it was just a very small incident that can be ignored, actually. But it’s not going to ignore that. It’s going to be some sabotage at that same level against Israel.
These kinds of attacks have been happening for many years right now. They have been attacking us, they have been trying to hack us, they have been carrying terrorist attacks and such things. And it is the same way. It is not an attack against Iran. It’s not like that at all.
The response is not going to be some military attack or some military operation that would be in a larger scale like the one that was carried out a few days ago or anything stronger than that.
Israel was defeated, and the US wants to detach itself from them
How do you see the US position in this sabotage act? What do you make of their position? The one side tried to keep Israel away from retaliating, on the other side they are of course their solid ally, promising to defend them.
The situation is very actually tough for the Americans, because on one hand, as you said, they are dedicated to defending and helping Israel. On the other hand, they cannot do that. And they don’t want to get involved in any tensions in the region. It’s the election year in the United States and the Americans don’t want to get involved into any war. And even if they want to get involved, they cannot get involved into any war in the Middle East region, because they know that they cannot stand a war against Iran.
The situation would be very difficult and a nightmare for the Americans, let alone the Israelis. And they understand that it is even Netanyahu and the Israelis who want to drag the United States into a war with Iran.
Because basically we have seen for nearly seven months that the Israelis cannot be able to even defeat Hamas, and they could not defend themselves against Hamas, even though the Americans helped them, let alone fighting against Iran. So what Israel needs is to create a war between Iran and the United States so that they could have the Americans and force the Americans to defend them and to distract the world from the defeat that they had in Gaza Strip. They want to change actually their battle zone and widen it.
So Americans are actually stuck in this situation, but they are doing their best to avoid any escalation of the tensions, and they are avoiding any confrontation with Iran. So that’s why from the very beginning, from the very early moment of this recent sabotage, they actually said that they have had no role in that, and they actually detached themselves from the situation right now.
This interview was conducted and first published on TeleSUR TV.