Tehran (IP) - Israel appears to have been behind a drone attack on a military factory in Iran, United States officials say according to the world's mainstream media reports.

Iran PressIran news: Israel was behind the drone attack, The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed US officials and people familiar with the strike as saying.

No response was immediately available from Israeli authorities.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters news agency that it did appear Israel was involved.

Other American officials declined to comment beyond saying the US played no role.

Mossad, Israel's notorious spy agency, launched the strike on Saturday - which caused a major explosion in the Iranian city - to serve its security interests, said unnamed US officials in the New York Times. 

"American officials quickly sent out word on Sunday morning that the United States was not responsible for the attack. One official confirmed that it had been conducted by Israel but did not have details about the target," the NYT said. 

 Meanwhile, in Ukraine, which accuses Iran of supplying drones to Russia to attack targets in Ukrainian cities, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy linked the incident directly to the war there.

“Explosive night in Iran,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Did warn you.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticized the drone attack as “cowardly” and aimed at creating “insecurity” in the country.

Iranian lawmaker Hossein Mirzaie said there was “strong speculation” Israel was behind it.

Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges.

In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top nuclear scientist.

Russia condemned the drone strike

Russia on Monday condemned Sunday’s drone strike on a military factory in Iran and warned against what it called “provocative” actions that could trigger an escalation in an already tense situation.

“Such destructive actions could have unpredictable consequences for peace and stability in the Middle East,” Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said.

Kremlin announced that Russia's intelligence services were analyzing information about the attack on Iran's military site "to get a more complete picture of what happened.

A source confirmed to Sputnik Persian that the unmanned aerial vehicles involved in Saturday’s attack were ordinary off-the-shelf drones, not "strike UAVs," as initially reported in some quarters.

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