Israeli intelligence officials have assessed that the US only has enough firepower in the Middle East to carry out four or five days of intense airstrikes on Iran, according to a report in the UK’s Financial Times on Tuesday.

The assessment comes despite the fact that the US has deployed the most firepower in the region since the 2003 Iraq invasion.

According to an Israeli intelligence source quoted in the report, the US could sustain a week of “lower-intensity strikes.”

The report added that Israeli security officials are concerned that if the US carries out only limited strikes on the Islamic Republic, it would escalate the regional tension by provoking the regime.

The warning comes after reports published in US media that the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, has warned President Donald Trump against a war with Iran due to concerns that it will drag the US into an extended regional confrontation and leave the US army depleted of air defense munitions. Trump later denied the reports, saying that Caine believes that the US could easily win a war with Iran.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)