Tel Aviv, March 5 (IANS) — The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that Iran has shown it is willing to strike “everyone around them” in West Asia as tensions escalate, and that Israeli forces have continued strikes inside Iran as part of a campaign the military calls “Operation Roaring Lion.” Lt. Ben Cohen, the IDF’s international spokesperson, told IANS the operation began Saturday with the aim of neutralising what Israel describes as an existential security threat from Iran’s ballistic missile programme, its nuclear ambitions and its network of proxies.
The IDF said an Israeli fighter jet shot down an Iranian Yakovlev Yak-130 aircraft over Tehran in the early hours of Thursday. Cohen told IANS that Israeli and US forces have carried out coordinated strikes on multiple strategic sites across Iran in recent days, including ballistic missile facilities, air force assets and naval infrastructure.
Cohen framed the campaign as preventive: “We began ‘Operation Roaring Lion’ on Saturday morning with the primary objective of targeting the Iranian terror regime and eliminating an existential threat to Israel and the entire world,” he said, naming Iran’s missile buildup and efforts to hide and advance nuclear programmes as central concerns. He added that strikes have targeted aerial defence systems and other military infrastructure to limit Iran’s ability to strike back.
Asked whether Iran still has the capacity to inflict widespread damage on Israel, Cohen warned that it does, citing both the country’s missile arsenal and its intent to target civilians. “We can’t afford to underestimate our enemies ever,” he said, referencing lessons learned after the October 7 attack.
Cohen said earlier Israeli operations, conducted with US support, had set back Iran’s nuclear programme. “We made sure that we’re taking them back years and we’re preventing them from obtaining that nuclear bomb in the immediate time frame that they could have,” he told IANS, adding that Iran has since tried to fortify and conceal its programmes.
On the initial phase of the current operation, Cohen said it eliminated “more than 40 senior commanders, the most senior of them being the Supreme Leader Khamenei,” a claim he made in the interview. He described the strikes as aimed solely at eradicating the security threat posed by Iran.
When pressed about whether Israel seeks regime change in Tehran, Cohen rejected that framing and said the military’s objectives are strictly security-oriented. “The goal of the IDF’s operation, the joint operations with the United States Armed Forces, is to eliminate an existential threat. We’re striking military targets. Whatever happens inside Iran in the future has to do with them,” he said.
Original Source: https://www.morungexpress.com/israel-warns-iran-ready-to-target-everyone-around-them-as-west-asia-conflict-intensifies
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Publish Date: 2026-03-05 12:38:00
