A series of Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian targets on Sunday close to Russia's main Syrian bases on the Mediterranean coast and areas near the ancestral home region of the Syrian president.
According to the Syrian army, three servicemen were killed and three were wounded in two simultaneous attacks south of the province of Tartous, and another on the northeastern outskirts of capital Damascus.
Two Syrian military defectors familiar with the region said that the strikes on the capital hit outposts run by Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group. An Iranian base near the village of Abu Afsa, south of the port city of Tartous was targeted alongside an air defense and radar station nearby, a source said on condition of anonymity.
Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes mostly since 2017 against what it has described as Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces have deployed over the last decade to support Assad in Syria's war, but has mostly avoided hitting the coastal provinces where Russia's main military assets are concentrated.
Russian forces in Syria normally turn a blind eye to Israeli airstrikes against suspected Iranian-sponsored deployments and arms transfers.
Tartus, along with the Khmeimim air base in the nearby province of Latakia, are the main Russian bases in the country, which are reportedly being taken over by Iran forces and Hezbollah as Russia has begun pulling out its troops from Syria to bolster forces in Ukraine.
The ministry's spokesman Nasser Kanaani repeated Iran's position that Rushdie had insulted Prophet Muhammed and is guilty. "Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular outrage by insulting Islamic sanctities and crossing the red lines of 1.5 billion Muslims," Kanaani said.
"During the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than himself and his supporters worthy of reproach and condemnation...No one has the right to accuse Iran in this regard."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the first senior US official to mention Iran in relation to the attempted murder in a statement on Sunday.
Amid nuclear negotiations with Tehran, President Joe Biden avoided mentioning Iran in his statement on August 13 condemning the attack on the renowned British-American author.
At the same time, Vice News reported on Sunday that the 24-year-old suspect Hadi Matar had been in contact with elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to European and Middle Eastern intelligence sources.
Earlier police had disclosed that Matar’s social media activities showed his affinity for Shiite extremist causes espoused by Iran, and even praise for the Revolutionary Guard.
Praising Rushdie’s life-long defense of freedom of expression and the press, Blinken said, “I am reminded of the pernicious forces that seek to undermine these rights, including through hate speech and incitement to violence.,” and went on to mention Iran.
“Specifically, Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media recently gloated about the attempt on his life. This is despicable.”
Iran’s foreign ministry's Kanaani on Monday said, “We categorically and officially deny” any links with the suspect. “No one has the right to accuse the Islamic Republic,” he said.
Since the knife attack last Friday [August 12], Iran International reported in detail about reactions by hardliner and government-owned media in Iran, praising a fatwa or edict issued in 1988 by then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini condemning Rushdie to death. There was even direct praise for the assailant, with the flagship ultraconservative paper Kayhan, published under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, saying “a thousand bravos” to Matar.
Top Iranian officials, however, have remained silent as talks to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, have reached a critical stage and Tehran is expected to respond to a proposal submitted to all parties by the European Union.
Media reports last week claimed that the Biden Administration has made concessions to Tehran, possibly even on the issue of lifting existing sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC).
The administration’s Iran envoy Rob Malley tried to dispel concerns that the US was ready to lift sanctions on at least parts of the military-intelligence organization, which controls Tehran’s regional policies and actions supporting militant groups.
Vice News quoted a NATO counter terrorism official from Europe who said the attack on Rushdie had all hallmarks of a “guided attack”, meaning that a spy agency or a terrorist network nudges a supporter toward committing a specific act, without getting directly involved in the operation itself.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and its extra-territorial unit the Qods (Quds) Force have extensive experience and networks throughout the world both in espionage and in nurturing militant individuals and groups. Their focus is on Shiites and they are aided by their strongest proxy force, the Lebanese Hezbollah, which has extensive networks in Latin America and fertile ground in Canada and the United States among Shiites.
Vice News also reported that the US is trying to find information from Lebanon about Matar’s possible links in the country after he travelled there and according to his mother returned a different person.
Hardliners in Iran who hailed the attack also threatened that former Trump administration officials would be next on the list of targets. Already, the US Justice Department last week said that former National Security Adviser John Bolton had been targeted for assassination.
Iran’s government and top officials have not reacted to the attack in New York on Friday on the Indian born author of Satanic Verses, but hardline media have openly welcomed the act, praising the assailant and calling it “divine vengeance”. They have also suggestedthat the attack maybe a US or Israeli plot to discredit Iran and spread Islamophobia.
Jam-e Jam, a newspaper run by the state broadcaster IRIB on Sunday bore the headline “Devil’s Eye Blinded” with a graphic on its frontpage, showing Rushdie’s head with devil’s horns. Kayhan, a hardline newspaper, ran the headline “Salman Rushdie Smitten by God’s Vengeance: Trump and Pompeo Next in Line”.
The head of the state broadcaster and the managing director of Kayhan are both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s appointees.
Kayhan argued that the attempt on Rushdie’s life was a “Sharia-based execution” for apostasy and claimed that world powers “are cunningly trying to prevent the execution of divine commands” by calling them “acts of terror”. “The United States, Israel, and the West will not be able to stop the Muslim umma (nation) [from carrying out divine commands] no matter how much noise they make about Rushdie's execution.”
The reformist Arman-e Emrouz newspaper, however, focused on what it called “New Round of Iranophobia Codenamed Salman Rushdie”. It interviewed two commentators who said “US Republicans and the Israeli lobby” are blaming Iran for the attack to prevent Tehran and Washington from resolving the nuclear issue. “We should be expecting a new wave of damage to Iran as well as the Democrat administration in the US,” Ali Bigdeli, one of the commentators said.
US President Joe Biden, in a statement Saturday, called the attack “vicious”. “Salman Rushdie—with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced—stands for essential, universal ideals. Truth. Courage. Resilience ...we reaffirm our commitment to those deeply American values in solidarity with Rushdie and all those who stand for freedom of expression,” the statement said.
Biden’s critics have pointed out that nowhere in the statement has he mentioned Iran or its bounty on Rushdie. “Finally, POTUSweighs in with a statement on Salman Rushdie, as he should. But again, there is no addressing of Iran's incitement or policy consequences. The question remains: How will the US deter Tehran-directed or inspired attacks against Americans?” Policy Director at United Against Nuclear Iran, tweeted Saturday.
“That Rushdie should be attacked in America no less is especially chilling, coming as it does just weeks after an assassin was arrested on the doorstep of prominent dissident Masih Alinejad and just days after revelations that Iran commissioned a terror attack on John Bolton,” Kylie Moore-Gilbert, British-Australian academic previously held hostage in Iran for over two years, said in a tweet.
Rishi Sunak, one of two conservativecandidates seeking to become Britain's next prime minister, said Saturday that the attack on Rushdie should be a “wake-up call” for the West about the threat which Iran still poses.
Sunak also suggested that the response by Iranian politicians and senior figures strengthens the case for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organizationwhile warning about the futility of attempts to restore the nuclear deal. "We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end."
Rushdie who was hospitalized on Friday with serious injuries after being repeatedly stabbed at a public appearance in New York state, is off a ventilator and his condition is improving, his agent said on Sunday.
