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Jerusalem Post (30 July 2019)

By Tzvı Joffre, Anna Ahronheım 

Israel used their F-35i stealth fighter jets to conduct attacks on Iranian targets to Iraq in the past month, hitting two Iraqi bases used by Iranian forces and proxies and storing Iranian ballistic missiles, the London-based Saudi daily Al Sharq Al Awsat reported on Tuesday.  

The first attack happened on July 19 at a base in Amreli in the Saladin province of Iraq. Iraqi and Iranian sources blamed Israel at the time, and Al Sharq Al Awsat reported that "diplomatic sources" confirmed this to be true, specifying that the attack was carried out by an Israeli F-35.

Al-Arabiya reported that Iranian-made ballistic missiles were transported to the base shortly before the attack via trucks used to transport refrigerated food. The identity of the aircraft which conducted the attack was unspecified at the time, and the US denied any involvement. Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah members were killed in the air strike, according to Al-Arabiya, however the Iranian-backed al-Hashd ash-Sha'abi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF) denied that any Iranians had been killed in the attack, according to Fars.

A source from the IRGC told the Kuwaiti Al Jarida newspaper that preliminary investigations indicate that Israel was behind the attack. An Israeli drone launched from a US base in Syria attacked the base, which stored short- and medium-range missiles.

The IRGC reached this conclusion because the type of missile that hit the camp is the same used by the IAF in attacks on Syria.

Al Sharq Al Awsat also reported that a second attack by Israel on Sunday on a base in Ashraf, Iraq northeast of Baghdad, targeting Iranian advisers who were present at the base and a shipment of ballistic missiles that had arrived shortly before from Iran.

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