(MENAFN- Live Mint) "Iran had informed the United States and neighboring countries about the drones and missiles attack before 72 hours of its launch, said Turkish, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said on Sunday.
“Iran gave neighboring countries and Israel's ally the United States 72 hours' notice it would launch the strikes,” said Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian as quoted by Reuters.
However, a senior official in the Biden administration stated that Tehran did not warn about the attack and that it was aiming to cause a significant damage.
“That is absolutely not true. They did not give a notification, nor did they give any sense of ... 'these will be the targets, so evacuate them.' We received a message from the Iranians as this was ongoing, through the Swiss. This was basically suggesting that they were finished after this, but it was still an ongoing attack. So that was (their) message to us,” the US official said.
The Iranian source stated that Iran had informed the US through diplomatic channels that included Turkey, Qatar, and Switzerland about the scheduled day of the attack Read | Live updates on Israel-Iran tensionsOn the contrary,
Turkey's foreign ministry had spoken to both Washington and Tehran before the attack, the country's diplomatic source said adding that it had conveyed messages as an intermediary to be sure reactions were proportionate.\"Iran said the reaction would be a response to Israel's attack on its embassy in Damascus and that it would not go beyond this. We were aware of the possibilities. The developments were not a surprise,\" the Turkish source said.
Iran on Saturday launched over 300 drones along with ballistic and cruise missiles on Israel in a retaliatory strike over Israeli's attack on its embassy in Syria that killed Iranian officials including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' overseas Quds Force.A few hours later, Israel claimed that it had intercepted 99% of missiles and drones before reaching the Israeli territory. It also warned that Israel will exact a price from Iran when the time is right.
(With Reuters inputs)

MENAFN14042024007365015876ID1108093354