Tehran signals that it may strike Israel within the day as US forces speed to region

(Originally published Aug. 6 in “What in the World“) Iran could launch its reprisal against Israel in less than 24 hours.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the warning to his counterparts in the Group of Seven industrialized nations during a Sunday conference call, saying Iran’s attack could come in less than 48 yours. That echoed a warning by an Iranian official Monday to a group of foreign diplomats in Tehran.

The U.S. has been beefing up its military presence in the Middle East in anticipation of an Iranian counterattack. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its associated group of naval destroyers is sailing from the Pacific to the region, where it joins the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which sailed from Asia to the region last month to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Pentagon is also dispatching additional destroyers and a fighter squadron to the Middle East.

Israel is bracing for an attack after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued an order for Iran to retaliate directly against Israel for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.

But retaliation may already be underway elsewhere in the region. Two rockets were fired Monday into the U.S. base at Ain Al-Asad in Iraq, reportedly injuring at least five American personnel. The rocket attack followed an airstrike late last week by U.S forces against a base used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Force, which is reportedly dominated by members loyal to Iran.

Since Israel invaded Gaza last October following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas into Israel, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have banded together into an “axis of resistance” to launch hundreds of attacks against at the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops there. U.S. forces have retaliated with regular air strikes. But Baghdad wants the Americans out by September. Both the Iran-backed militias and the U.S. troops are ostensibly operating in Iraq to defeat a common foe, Islamic State.