Iranian Bank Report Reveals Shady Lending, Huge Losses

The attack targeted what some sources said was Material and Energy Laboratory of Esfahan with what the defense ministry said were “small drones.” Videos citizens sent to Iran International showed explosion, although the government claimed its air defenses had fended off the attack.

The WSJ quoted unnamed US officials and people familiar with the operation that the drone attack was carried out by Israel.

Small or quadcopter drones, however, cannot fly hundreds of kilometers to reach Esfahan, located in central Iran. If indeed the attack was carried out with small drones, it would mean operators were present on the ground, in Iran.

Israel began targeting Iranian nuclear and sensitive targets since July 2020, often with devastating results, through sabotage operations. Therefore, it was assumed that it had agents in operating in Iran.

The attack on Saturday comes as the United States and Israel have expanded close military coordination, including drills just days earlier, as well as discussing ways to combat Iran’s capabilities.

Tehran’s supply of large, kamikaze Shahed-136 drones with a 45-kilo warhead to Russia are a concern for the US and NATO. Russia has used hundreds of these drones to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

THE WSJ journal quoted Israel’s top general Herzi Haveli last week that Israel and the US “were preparing for the worst.”

On Sunday, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry labeled the attack, in which a security guard was shot dead and two others were wounded, as an "act of terrorism," adding that the embassy will be evacuated immediately. 

A video has been released on social media, showing a truck outside the embassy loading furniture at night. It is not yet clear whether the embassy will continue to function.

Police in Tehran says it arrested the attacker at the scene and authorities condemned Friday's incident, claiming that the gunman appeared to have had a personal, not a political, motive. But Azerbaijan summoned the Iranian ambassador and media in Baku seemed eager to portray the incident as a terror attack, claiming the assailant was a member of the Revolutionary Guard.

Azerbaijani media outlet Trend News Agency reported on Friday that “the perpetrator of the incident, identified as Iranian citizen Yasin Hosseinzadeh, and there are suspicions that he is related to Iran's special services, especially the IRGC.” It added that Iranian security forces guarding the embassy did not try to stop the attack.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said the shooting was the result of Tehran failing to heed its calls for better security. CCTV footage of the incident showed the attacker forcing his way into the embassy building and shooting at two men before a third embassy employee grappled him away.

According to an article in Trend, the incident at the embassy occurred as “part of Iran's policy of hostility towards Azerbaijan.” A deputy of the country’s parliament said, "Iranian televisions and radios continuously promote hostility towards Azerbaijan. This once again shows that the Iranian state has a hand in the terrorist incident at the embassy, because it is known that Iran has always been a nest of terrorism and is one of the main countries that support terrorism. The terrorist incident against our embassy proved this once again."

Iran’s state media broadcast confessions by a grey-haired man identified as the assailant, who claimed he attacked the embassy believing that his wife was held inside the building. The embassy staff had given him a written statement attesting that she was not there, but the man said he was sure his wife was in the building and attacked the embassy to prove that.

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Apparently his wife, who was an Azerbaijani citizen, left him ten months ago and he believed she found refuge inside the mission.

The Islamic Republic’s state broadcaster also talked to the seven-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter of the family, who purportedly were in the car outside the embassy. The girl said she had told her father that their mother was not in the embassy, adding that she was in contact with her mother in Azerbaijan and spoke to her on the phone about 10 days earlier.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called for "a comprehensive investigation" of the incident and sent his condolences to Azerbaijan and the family of the dead man, identified as First Lieutenant Orkhan Rizvan oglu Teymurov. During a phone call with his Azeri counterpart late Saturday, Raisi said Tehran and Baku have inseparable historical relations and will not allow those relations to be affected by the two countries' ill-wishers.

Member of the Iranian parliament’s presidium Ali Nikzad has promised that necessary investigations will be done regarding the attack. The Iranian foreign minister also held a phone call with his Azeri counterpart, calling for the return of the country’s ambassador to Iran. 

The incident came amid increased tensions between the neighboring countries triggered by territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia and Yerevan as well as over Baku's decision this month to appoint its first ever ambassador to Israel. Iran is dangerously implicated in regional tensions centered on Azerbaijan-Armenia that are exacerbated by fall-out from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In November, at a Baku conference ‘Along the Middle Corridor,’ Azeri President Ilham Aliyev launched a broadside against Iran, his toughest so far since relations soured over Iran’s role in the 2020 Azerbaijan-Armenia war, when adjacent Iranian military exercises followed the Azerbaijanis capturing areas around the disputed Nagorno-Karabagh enclave and along the Iran border. Tehran-Baku tensions have simmered since the 2020 war, when Iran moderated its past support for mainly Christian Armenia due partly to domestic pressures from both ethnic Azeri and Shia clerics supporting fellow Muslims.

“We worked with three presidents of Iran, [Mohammad] Khatami, [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, and [Hassan] Rouhani,” Aliyev said. “For all these years there was no situation similar to the current one. Never has Iran had two military exercises near our borders within a few months. There have never been such hateful and threatening statements against Azerbaijan,” he said, referring to warnings from President Ebrahim Raisi and other leaders against any border changes or threats to Iran’s transit route to Armenia, which is vulnerable since 2020 changes. Iran carried out more military drills along the border October, when Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also visited Yerevan.

While Iranian authorities claim that the drone attack in one of its “munition manufacturing centers” was "unsuccessful", Intellitimes said the targeted site was “the Material and Energy Laboratory of Esfahan.”

The report also added that the timing of the attack was not accidental, and it was carried out on the day the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, visited the exhibition of Iran's industrial accomplishments, including drone achievements.

Two years ago, an attack on one of Iran's centrifuge farms was carried out on the same day President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated the exhibition of Iran's atomic achievements, added the weblog.

The Jerusalem Post, citing Western and foreign intelligence sources, also wrote that contrary to Iran’s claim the attack on "advanced weapons development" facility was a "tremendous success".

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Sunday the drone attack will not affect the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

The Iranian defense ministry reported that “small drones targeted one of the defense ministry centers in Isfahan province, central Iran.” This happened around eleven in the evening Saturday.

“Fortunately, with predictions and defensive measures, the air defense system of the complex managed to detonate two small drones at the top of the complex, while the third caused minor damage to the military complex affiliated with the ministry,” added the report.

Mohammad Sargazi, who represents the province in the Iranian parliament told ILNA news agency Saturday that the president’s special aide for Afghanistan affairs has been told to convey to the Afghan government that if the Taliban do not give allow Iran’s share of the water to flow across the border, Tehran will expel the Afghans.

While millions of Afghans live in Iran, the Iranian government has not yet reacted to the MP’s claim.

Islamic Republic authorities have had disagreements with Afghanistan over the issue of the Hirmand river, but since the Taliban regained power in Kabul, the dispute has escalated.

Tehran's relationship with the Taliban has a mixture of diplomatic attempts to regulate relations and border tensions.

The previous Afghan government stopped the flow of water to Iran after inaugurating the Kamal Khan Dam, in Nimroz province in 2021. During the inauguration of the dam, ex-President Ashraf Ghani, expressed commitment to the 1973 agreement over Hirmand waters, apparently suggesting that Kabul wanted to trade water for oil.

Sistan-Baluchistan is the most deprived regions of Iran. During recent nationwide protests that swept the country following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, more than 100 protesters have been killed by regime forces in the province.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA cited the Iranian Seismological Center that the quake struck the city of Khoy in West Azarbaijan province.

Mehr news agency reported that 70 villages had been damaged adding that relief operations are underway.

Damage was reported to buildings and some of the infrastructure in the area with some neighborhoods experiencing power blackouts too.

The city had experienced several smaller butconsiderable quakes in the past months with no casualties or significant damage.

Videos shared on social media show heavy traffic in the streets of the city late Saturday as residents abandoned their homes. Many have also been stationed in temporary tents amid freezing temperatures.

Iran is crisscrossed by major geological fault lines and is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world because it is located where the Arabian, Indian, and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

Iran has had a terrible history of massive earthquakes in recent decades, with some killing up to tens of thousands of people and causing billions in damages, such as the magnitude 6.6 quake in Kerman province in 2003 that killed 31,000 people and flattened the ancient city of Bam.