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Saturday night, Iran was hit by a series of drone attacks targeting strategic military facilities; see BREAKING. Iranian Defense Facilities Under Drone Attack. The most spectacular attack was on an ammunition factory in Isfahan, but targets all over Iran were hit. Adding to the mystery, the drones were launched from sites inside Iran.

The list of objects in #Iran on which missile strikes were carried out has become known:
Headquarters of the IRGC
IRGC Special Forces Base "Quds"
Ammunition and UAV Production Center
Refinery.
Weapons factory.
Military bases in Hamadan and Keredzh. pic.twitter.com/C9IkGApuai

— Dana Levi דנה🇮🇱🇺🇸🇬🇧 (@Danale) January 29, 2023

No one has claimed responsibility, but a Wall Street Journal article based on leaks from the intelligence community fingers a suspect.

Israel carried out a drone strike targeting a defense compound in Iran, as the U.S. and Israel look for new ways to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the operation.

Iranian officials said that the country’s air defenses had fended off an attempted attack by three small quadcopters targeting a munitions factory in the city of Isfahan, right next to a site belonging to the Iran Space Research Center, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its work on Iran’s ballistic-missile program.

Iran said its air defenses brought down one of the drones while the two others exploded above the warehouse, causing minor damage to the roof.

I don’t know why the WSJ felt it necessary to include Iran’s bullsh** statement about the attacks being thwarted when we have the video. None of the potential explanations speak highly of either the intelligence or integrity of the people who made that decision.

The strike marks the first known attack carried out by Israel under the new far-right coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sanctioned a series of bold operations inside Iran when he last served in that role from 2009 to 2021.

There are some interesting side stories to this. Because the attack was completely and totally foiled, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council went into emergency session.

One of the sites hit was a manufacturing facility for the Shahed-136 suicide drones that have been used extensively by Russia to target Ukrainian population centers and infrastructure, one of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s senior advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, weighed in on the incident with a comment that amounted to FAFO.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council: Zelensky adviser's tweet will cost Ukraine dearly😏 pic.twitter.com/B7WmYviTfv

— Reggie Meezer (@ReggieMeezer) January 30, 2023

This resulted in Iran’s foreign ministry calling in the Ukrainian ambassador for a scolding.

JUST IN: #BNNIran Reports.

Iran summoned Ukraine's Ambassador in Tehran over comments made by Ukraine's President's advisor @Podolyak_M on a drone strike on a military factory in the central Iranian province of Isfahan.#Iran #Ukraine #Politics pic.twitter.com/Gc68KfVbvI

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) January 30, 2023

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Podolyak’s statement would “cost Ukraine dearly.” As Iran has supplied over a thousand suicide drones to Russia, I think they’ve sort of used up their best opportunity to inflict costs unless a lot of sweaty, bearded guys speaking Farsi wearing bulky parkas with wires hanging out suddenly try to get into Ukraine.

And I’m sure this has nothing to do with anything.

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns made an unannounced trip to Israel last week to discuss Iran and other regional issues, according to people familiar with his visit.

Israel is not taking responsibility, and Iran is downplaying the results. This indicates that neither side wants an escalation of events, but everyone knows what happened.

Based on what has been reported, let me give you my takeaways.

1. Israel may be reluctant to assist Ukraine directly, but they are willing to strike Iran out of enlightened self-interest.
2. Some of the attacks (maybe many, but I haven’t been tracking Iranian politics closely) are in areas that are overtly hostile to the government. The drone strikes not only damaged defense infrastructure, they sent a message to the population that the government is not invulnerable.
3. Launching the attacks from inside of Iran, like the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist (Mossad Whacks Top Iranian Nuclear Scientist, Joe Biden’s Ability to Suck Up To Iran Hardest Hit) and stealing Iran’s nuclear archive from inside Tehran (Somehow Mossad Stole a Half-Ton of Iran’s Nuclear Secrets and Netanyahu Is Showing Them on Television), also sends a message that Israel can operate inside Iran and no one or nothing is immune to attack.
4. If the CIA director was in Israel shortly before the attacks, this hints that even a craven and anti-American State Department has given up on another nuclear sell-out to Iran.