DUBAI: Is Iran going for scorched earth? Is Tehran moving towards a policy of regional saturation, from targeted military strikes on US-Israel bases and installations?
Perhaps, it is, since Azerbaijan became the unsuspecting, yet eighth Iranian attack target in six days when an Arash-class suicide drome hit the Nakhchivan International Airport and another landed near a school in the Shekerabad village.
This is an exclave of Azerbaijan, separated from mainland by Armenian land and has 44-km-long international border with Iran, with a sizeable Shia population. It came as a surprise since Azerbaijan has nothing to do with the current conflict between Iran, US and Israel and it hosts no American base, unlike Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey, which was hit by a ballistic missile.
“The Azerbaijani side,” Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran said in a statement on social media, “reserves the right to take appropriate response measures.”
“We strongly condemn these drone attacks launched from the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which resulted in damage to the airport building and injuries of two civilians. This attack against the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan constitutes a violation of the norms and principles of international law and serves to increase tensions in the region,” the embassy added.
“We demand from the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide, within the shortest possible timeframe, a clear explanation regarding the case, conduct an appropriate investigation, and take the necessary urgent measures to ensure that such attacks are not repeated in the future.”
Iran has been stung by the loss of IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean to US submarine strike which claimed the lives of some 87 Iranian sailors, an event that has been dubbed as an “atrocity” at sea by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set,” he said on social media.
Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, in one of the few clerical statements so far from Iran, later called on state television for the shedding of both Israeli and “Trump’s blood.”
“Fight the oppressive America, his blood is on my shoulders,’” Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, Iranian cleric, said on state television. An open call to violence from an ayatollah, one of the highest ranks within the clergy of Shiite Islam, is a rare thing to happen.
So far the war between Iran and the US and Israel, which commenced after the latter hit Iran’s leadership, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has claimed 1000 Iranian lives, apart from dozens on the other side. The conflict, which started with the avowed intent of regime change in Iran, has now shifted to an open-ended war since the goalpost has been shifted to destroying and debilitating Iran as a region power.