Iran did not know Hamas was going to attack Israel on Oct. 7, US Intelligence says

U.S. Intelligence indicated on Monday that Iran was unaware that their proxy group Hamas was going to attack Israel on Oct.7.

Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism and obscurity has surrounded its role on Oct. 7, with some early reports indicating Tehran helped Hamas plan and orchestrate the attacks in advance. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said in the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment report released Monday that Hamas’ actions caught Iran off guard.

“We assess that Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had foreknowledge of the HAMAS attack against Israel,” reads the DNI report.

Today, ODNI released the U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2024 Annual Threat Assessment. Read the report here: https://t.co/AlLUbVUVnr pic.twitter.com/0r9OtLwATw

— Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) March 11, 2024

Iranian leadership claimed in November that this was true and initially told Hamas leadership that it would not be joining in the fight against Israel. Israel and Iran are currently trying to “calibrate their actions against each other to avoid escalation into a direct full-scale conflict,” according to the DNI report.

Though Iran has its own military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – it often chooses to avoid direct conflict, instead relying on its network of terror proxy groups across the Middle East to carry out attacks against its enemies. Iranian-backed terror groups, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, have launched an array of attacks against Israel, the U.S., and Western allies in the Middle East region since Hamas first attacked on Oct. 7.

The Islamic Resistance launched an attack against a coalition airbase in Jordan in late January and killed three U.S. soldiers, prompting retaliatory strikes from the U.S. against Iran-backed targets across Iraq and Syria. Iranian-backed forces in the region began halting attacks against bases in the wake of the U.S. retaliatory strikes.

But these groups may rear their heads in the coming year, according to the DNI report. “Hizballah is calibrating this pressure on Israel from the north while trying to avoid a broader war that would devastate Hizballah and Lebanon,” the DNI report reads. “Hizballah’s leadership, though, probably will consider a range of retaliatory options depending on Israel’s actions in Lebanon during the upcoming year.”

“In Iraq, Iranian-aligned militias almost certainly will continue attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria,” the DNI report says. “The Houthi’s continued ballistic missile, cruise missile, and UAV attacks against merchant vessels transiting the Red Sea, which are disrupting international shipping, and on Israel create a real risk of broader escalation.”

Avril Haines, the current DNI, will testify about the report to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, alongside FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Bill Burns.

The DNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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