The London-based, Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on Tuesday cited western diplomatic sources who reported that Israel has expanded the scope of its Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria, which included an unconfirmed July 19 airstrike earlier this month against an Iranian rockets depot northeast of Baghdad. According to the report, the attack was carried out by a stealth F-35 fighter jet.
Last week, Syria’s Tal al-Hara was struck by Israeli warplanes.
According to Asharq al-Awsat, on Sunday, Israeli warplanes raided the Ashraf base in Iraq, located 25 miles northeast of Baghdad and 50 miles from the border with Iran. The strikes targeted Iranian “advisors” and a ballistic missile shipment that had recently arrived from Iran.
The Iraqi Army confirmed the July 19 attack, describing it as a UAV that dropped a grenade on the base, leading to the injuries of at least two people. But an Iraqi security official told Reuters that the base suffered two blasts, one of them in a weapons warehouse belonging to an Iran-backed militia.
According to Al Arabia, the weapons stored in the facility were Iranian-made missiles.