Iran-backed militias around the Middle East are intensifying attacks against Israel, the US and their allies, in retaliation for the ongoing joint US-Israeli offensive against Tehran as the war draws in new armed actors, threatening wider chaos and violence. Israel and the US have targeted Iran's network of militant groups, with Iraq emerging as a key front in this new and often clandestine confrontation.
The Israeli military announced that it dropped as many bombs on Iran as Israel used during the entirety of the 12-day war last year over just a third of the time this week, signalling the severity of the Israeli military's bombardment without even counting the bombardments carried out by U.S. forces.
Iran, the officials say, was prepared for this conflict. The command structures built to survive a decapitation strike appear to remain substantially intact, allowing Iranian retaliatory strikes to begin against Israel, Qatar and Bahrain within hours of the initial attacks.