Their attacks have targeted police stations and intelligence bases in what may be part of a plan to encourage Iranians to rise up against the government, experts say.
A police station destroyed by U.S.-Israel airstrikes, seen during a government media tour on Tuesday.Credit…
The United States and Israel have been striking Iran’s police stations, detention centers and intelligence offices in addition to typical military targets, in an apparent effort to weaken the country’s labyrinthine and entrenched security agencies.
The attacks may be part of a strategy to encourage Iranians to rise up and fight against the state from within, experts say.
“This clearly is one of the main objectives of this operation — to dismantle the operative machine of a regime,” said Farzin Nadimi, a defense analyst focused on Iran at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel have cast their attack as a “historic opportunity” for Iranians to bring down their government. They have offered little in the way of public explanation as to how an unarmed civilian population could do that against a heavily armed array of security forces.
It remains unclear whether the strikes will encourage Iranians to attempt to overthrow the government. Analysts say that targeting local police stations and detention centers — places where tens of thousands protesters and dissenters were held throughout waves of anti-government unrest in Iran — will be symbolic for many Iranians.
“A lot of people have a lot of bad memories of being held, beaten up, and persecuted in those buildings,” Mr. Nadimi said. “Seeing them go up in the smoke is part of the process of dismantling this oppressive police state.”
Israel’s military has given conflicting indications about its intentions.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said Tuesday that Israel was “acting against military and terror threats to our civilians.” But, he added: “We’re targeting the Iranian security establishment, which also includes elements relevant to suppressing the Iranian people.”
Among those targets, Lt. Col. Shoshani said, was the Basij, a plainclothes militia that is affiliated with Iran’s most powerful military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC.
The Basij, estimated to number at about one million, have played a central role in repressing past protests and aided the brutal crackdown on the nationwide demonstrations that began in January and killed thousands.
The Israeli military released a video showing a powerful strike on what it said was the headquarters of Thar-Allah, a Revolutionary Guards unit in the capital, Tehran, which has in the past been a principal force tasked with defending the government and state institutions.
Videos filmed in Tehran and verified by The New York Times show piles of rubble and debris around the bombed-out remains of a police station near Nilufar Square, in a central part of the city. In the footage, groups of people stand and watch as emergency workers sift through the smoking wreckage.
Other footage verified by The Times shows damage at another police station in central Tehran earlier this week, near the city’s famed Grand Bazaar.
Much of Iran’s security system is deeply embedded in its cities, and U.S. and Israeli strikes on those locations carry a high risk of civilian deaths. Some rights activists have also expressed concern that attacks on security sites could imperil people detained there.
The extent to which Iranians feel emboldened by the strikes will depend on how extensive and effective they are, said Farzan Sabet, an analyst of Iran and weapons systems at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland.
“How thorough is this campaign? And does it create fractures in the system and defections?” Mr. Sabet said, adding that defections in the security forces would be a sign the attacks were working.
So far, there is no sign of such defections.
“If we get those two elements — defections plus degrading the apparatus of oppression — I think people might have a fighting chance,” Mr. Sabet said.
Other videos reviewed by the Times suggested that police stations in more rural areas, such as the city of Sarableh in Ilam province, in western Iran, were being destroyed during the bombing campaign.
U.S. and Israeli strikes have pounded Iran’s internal security forces in the largely Kurdish regions of western Iran, residents and analysts said.
That may be strategic, Mr. Sabet said, as members of Iran’s ethnic Kurdish minority have been involved in anti-government protests over the years and harbored ambitions for autonomy in their regions. Several of those groups have armed affiliates across the border in neighboring Iraq who are readying to join the fight.
Officials from two Iranian Kurdish militias said they had been wary to get involved in the early days of the U.S. and Israeli assault, fearing that, if it were to quickly end, their forces might be left at the mercy of a still-powerful Iranian state. Now, they said, they were preparing to send in operatives, provided that Iran’s security apparatus continues to be degraded.
Mr. Nadimi of the Washington Institute said there was a risk that encouraging protesters or starting a regional insurgency could backfire if the people running the state security services maintained their power.
“Destroying buildings alone is not enough,” he said. “Many of those Basij, IRGC — they are just changing to plain clothes and mingling with people and just trying to survive until the day comes to take up arms.”
