The New York Times quoted officials as saying that the Iranian missile attack, on sites in Irbil (Iraqi Kurdish) last Sunday, was in response to a secret Israeli raid on a drone factory in Iran last month.
Some of these sources said that the Israeli intelligence agents, who oversaw the directing of this air strike, were stationed in Iraq.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard had announced its adoption of a ballistic missile attack on sites in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, and said that it had targeted "the strategic headquarters of hostile Zionist plots and plans" with precision missiles, and that this was a response to "the recent crimes committed by the Zionist entity," without giving details.
The Iraqi regional government condemned the Iranian attack, and denied the existence of any Tel Aviv headquarters or interests in the region.
And this American newspaper quoted - on the authority of a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the details of the Israeli raid - that 6 booby-trapped drones exploded at a facility for manufacturing drones located near Kermanshah (western Iran) on February 12 last.
This intelligence official - who asked not to be named - said that this facility is the main site in Iran for the manufacture and storage of military drones, and added that the Israeli attack destroyed dozens of these aircraft.
On the Iranian side, officials did not confirm that the facility is for drones, referring only to it as a base for the Revolutionary Guards.
The New York Times described these mutual attacks as "a worrying escalation in the long shadow war between Israel and Iran, as the two sides expand the borders of this conflict in which the United States is stuck, as well as Iraq now."
The Israeli media spoke about the raid that targeted the Kermanshah facility, as military expert Ron Ben Yishai said in an article in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that this attack attributed to Israel constitutes an important development in what is described as the multi-front war between Tel Aviv and Tehran, which he said has been going on for more than 10 years. .
The Israeli military expert indicated that the attack resulted in the destruction of about 100 drones, and constituted a major blow to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.