The United States is on high alert and actively preparing for a "significant" attack by Iran that could occur within the next week in response to Monday's Israeli attack in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.
Senior US officials currently believe that an attack by Iran is "inevitable," a view shared by their Israeli counterparts, that official said. The two governments are working aggressively to position themselves for what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran's attack could unfold in several different ways and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.
An upcoming Iranian attack was one of the main topics of discussion in President Joe Biden's phone call with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.
A direct attack on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios for which the Biden Administration is preparing, as it would ensure a rapid escalation of a tumultuous entry situation in the Middle East. Such an attack could lead the war between Israel and Hamas to escalate into a broader regional conflict, something Biden has long sought to avoid.
Iran has vowed revenge following Monday's Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Syria, which killed at least seven officials. Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), and commander Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, were among the dead, according to Iran's Foreign Ministry.
Zahedi, former commander of the IRGC's ground and air forces and deputy commander of its operations, is the highest-profile Iranian target killed since then-US President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC general Qassem Soleimani , in Baghdad in 2020.
The United States was quick to inform Iran that the Biden administration was not involved in or had prior knowledge of Monday's attack on the embassy, and has warned Iran not to go after American assets.
"The United States was not involved in the attack and we had no advance knowledge of it," a National Security Council spokesperson told CNN earlier this week.
The United States considers its own embassies and consulates abroad, as well as the embassies and consulates of foreign countries in the United States, to have special status. According to the US State Department, "an attack against an embassy is considered an attack against the country it represents."
On Tuesday, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said the US assessment was that Israel had carried out the airstrike.
"That's our assessment, and it's also our assessment that there were a few senior IRGC leaders there. I can't confirm those identities, but that's our initial assessment at this point," Singh said.
Israel has intensified its military campaign against Iran and its regional allies following the October 7 attack by the Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.
Israel's subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 32,800 people, according to the besieged enclave's Health Ministry, wreaked widespread destruction and pushed more than a million people to the brink of famine.