WASHINGTON — The United States has collected multiple pieces of intelligence that show that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the Hamas attack in Israel, information that has fueled U.S. doubts that Iran played a direct role in planning the assault, according to several U.S. officials.
The United States, Israel and key regional allies have not found evidence that Iran directly helped plan the attack, according to the U.S. officials, an Israeli official and another official in the Middle East.
While the U.S. officials would not identify the Iranian officials who expressed surprise at the attack, they said the Iranian officials were people who typically would be aware of operations involving the Quds Force, Iran’s paramilitary arm that supports and works with proxy forces.
U.S. officials said the intelligence investigation was continuing and could turn up evidence that Iran or other states were directly involved in the Hamas operation. Senior officials said they were keeping an open mind, reviewing old intelligence reports and looking for new information.
Iran has provided large numbers of weapons and support to Hamas over many years. U.S. officials have made clear that they believe this makes Iran broadly complicit in the attack. But that was different from direct knowledge and involvement, they said.
Morgan Muir, a senior U.S. intelligence official, told members of Congress in a briefing Tuesday that there was no direct link between Iran and the Hamas attack, U.S. officials said. Muir provided few details but told lawmakers that U.S. agencies had intelligence contradicting assertions that Iran had helped plan the attack.
The United States and its allies regularly track and monitor meetings between Quds Force leaders and their proxies and allies, including Hamas. But officials say there is no evidence so far that those meetings were used to plan the attack in Israel. While officials concede that there could have been other secret meetings that Western intelligence did not track, for now they have found no evidence of such meetings.
The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. The U.S. officials requested that The New York Times not report the means of collection to protect sources and methods.
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