Israel has passed intelligence to the United States indicating that Iran is considering the use of chemical weapons against its enemies, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. and regional officials. The information has set off alarm among some American officials and deep skepticism among others.

Some officials see the intelligence as part of a pressure campaign by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government to get the Trump administration to return to major combat operations against Iran. Others say the warning must be taken seriously, given the recent series of alerts about Iranian preparations to attack American interests. In conversations with U.S. spy agencies over the past two weeks, Israeli officials have described the chemical threat as more urgent than Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

According to American officials, Israeli intelligence has told its U.S. counterparts that Iran is moving rapidly to develop the technology to put chemical weapons on a missile, or to smuggle them into Israel or another country for an attack. Using a drone to deliver such a weapon is also a possibility. People briefed on the intelligence disagreed on how quickly or effectively Iran could deploy one. Weapons experts note that mounting a chemical warhead on a ballistic missile is not difficult, but making sure it disperses the agent effectively is.

Israel also briefed officials in Gulf countries on its assessments without sharing evidence. A regional official said the Gulf governments found the claims unserious, and several believe Israel is trying to push the United States and its partners back into a more intense phase of the war. Some American officials compared the warnings to the flawed 2002 intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

In 2003, Iran acknowledged that it had developed chemical capabilities during its war with Iraq in the 1980s but said it later dismantled them. Iran publicly denies having chemical weapons. However, U.S. intelligence assessments have said for years that Tehran likely aims to continue chemical weapons research. In 2024, the U.S. director of national intelligence warned that “Iran probably aims to continue research and development of chemical and biological agents for offensive purposes.”

“Israel closely tracks every threat posed by the Iranian terror regime and is prepared to deal with it,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said. A U.S. official said President Trump would keep America and its allies safe from any potential threat.

The report comes as U.S. Central Command has a plan to strike Iran beginning as early as Wednesday, after the midterm elections, while three American aircraft carriers are in the region, according to U.S. officials. One of the carriers will have to return to its home port after early November. At the same time, diplomats are still pushing for a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, address Iran’s nuclear program and hold off further military action.

On October 23, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton sent Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio a memo warning of the threat of Iranian attacks. U.S. agencies now assess that the threat to Americans in the Middle East and several other countries is at its highest level since the war began in February.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)