Iran continues to send mixed messages on the Hamas-Israel war, saying to the United Nations that it does not seek to escalate the war, but it inevitably will.

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN Thursday that his government has “insisted that we are not going to expand this war front.”

He also claimed Tehran has nothing to do with attacks against US forces mushrooming across the region since Hamas declared war on Israel. “We have said very clearly that Iran is not involving in any attack against the United States forces in the region.” 

Earlier in the day, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the continuation of Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas would inevitably lead to an expansion of the conflict.

Such conflicting statements by the Iranian regime have been recurring since October 7, when the Tehran-backed Islamist militants killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians in Israel and ignited the current crisis. Israel has been pounding the enclave to uproot the Islamist group, which has made the war exceedingly bloody hiding deep among the civilian population and underneath the coastal sliver’s non-military facilities.

Iran supports Hamas but says it did not play any role in the October 7 attack. Iran also backs the Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group that has deep ties with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian faction in Gaza that is also backed by Iran.

Iran provides support to militant groups, giving arms and training in overt and covert ways. 

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Thursday that the US forces have been attacked 46 times since October 17. That includes 24 attacks in Iraq and 22 in Syria, she added. A total of 56 troops have been injured in the attacks, the Pentagon says.