Middle East | Iran attacked three different countries within a day – the motive could have been revenge, the expert estimates

Iran carried out several attacks on his nearby areas during Tuesday. First it did a missile strike to Iraq and Syriathen an airstrike To Pakistan.

According to Iran, the purpose of the attacks in Iraq and Syria was to attack terrorist groups opposed to Iran.

Iran has not officially commented on the attack on Pakistani territory. According to Pakistan, two children were killed in the attack. The country characterized the attack as “totally condemnable” and assured that there was no provocation on the part of Pakistan.

Three attacks in one day are causing the world to worry that the already warlike situation in the Middle East will escalate even more.

The visiting expert of the Foreign Policy Institute Olli Ruohomäki according to Iran's attacks, however, are more connected to the country's internal politics than to its efforts to influence events in its neighboring regions.

He estimated that Iran would probably have reacted with strikes in the country to the terrorist act that happened at the beginning of Januarywhich killed more than a hundred people.

January in the beginning, hundreds of Iranians had gathered around the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Maj.-Gen Qassem Suleimani to a grave near the city of Kerman. They were there to honor the anniversary of Suleiman's death.

Suleimani was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad in January 2020. The general played a significant role in Iran's operations in Syria and Iraq.

Two men arrived at the memorial service and detonated their bomb belts. More than a hundred people died and almost 300 people were injured in the suicide attack. It was one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in Iran in decades.

People had gathered to remember the dead Iranian general Qassem Suleiman in Kerman, Iran on January 3. There were devastating explosions during the memorial service. Picture: WANA

The terrorist organization Isis took responsibility for the attack on extreme Islamist messaging channels.

“Iran seems to have had a need to avenge the terrorist attack that happened on Suleiman's Memorial Day,” says Ruohomäki.

According to Ruohomäki, the missile attack on Syria in particular points to revenge. According to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the attacks targeted Syrian targets where ISIS commanders would have gathered.

Ruohomäki assumes that the motive behind the airstrike on Pakistan's territory was also influenced by the motive of revenge.

“It would seem that the airstrike in Pakistan targeted the province of Balochistan. The Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl operates there, which has also carried out attacks against Iran.”

Ruohomäki, on the other hand, seems unclear about the motive for the missile attack on Iraq.

“The attack targeted Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, which has been a fairly stable region for a long time. Erbil should not have connections with Isis, because Isis has never extended its influence in the region.”

Iran claims to have destroyed an espionage headquarters in Erbil, which would have been connected to Israel's intelligence agency Mossad. According to Ruohomäki, however, there are no known indications that the Mossad had a base in the area.

“Such a claim does not sound very waterproof. Meddling in Iraq's internal politics is not unusual for Iran. It has been meddling in the country's affairs since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.”

in Iran parliamentary elections will be held in March this year. According to Ruohomäki, Tuesday's attacks may therefore reflect the country's administration's need to boost its power during the elections.

“Iran has internal problems, and it is quite typical that in the midst of internal problems, people's attention is diverted outside the country's borders. Iran would not be the only state that would seek to exploit such a ploy.”