Israeli Airstrike on Syrian Capital Kills Iranian Commanders; Tehran Says It 'Reserves the Right to Respond'

An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital Damascus killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ spy chief for Syria and three other Guards members Saturday, in an attack that tore into a residential building. As many as 10 people were killed in the Israeli strike on the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

This comes as Israel has been accused of intensifying strikes on senior Iranian and allied figures in Syria and Lebanon raising concerns the Gaza conflict could expand. “The Revolutionary Guards’ Syria intel chief, his deputy and two other Guards members were martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel,” Iran’s Mehr news agency said, quoting an informed source.

‘Attempt to spread instability’

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it lost four of its members in the strike that it accused Israel, of carrying out. The Guards’ Sepah news agency said the “evil and criminal Zionist regime (Israel)” killed four of its military advisers. It identified them as Hojatollah Omidvar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi and Saeed Karimi.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the Israeli missile strike as a “desperate attempt to spread instability in region.” “Iran … reserves its right to respond to the organised terrorism of the fake Zionist regime at the appropriate time and place,” foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani was quoted by state media as saying. He also urged foreign countries and international organisations to condemn the attack.

Hundreds of Israeli strikes

When asked about the strike, the Israeli army told AFP: “We do not comment on reports from the foreign media”. During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions. But it has intensified attacks since the war between Israel and Hamas, which like Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement is an ally of Iran, began on October 7.

The Observatory said an Israeli strike on a four-storey building killed 10 people after four more bodies were recovered from the rubble, of the destroyed building “where Iran-aligned leaders were meeting” in Damascus. Among the dead were Iranians and other Tehran-backed fighters, its director, Rami Abdel Rahman, told the French news agency.

The British-based war monitor with a network of sources inside Syria said the targeted building belonged to the IRGC and that the neighbourhood is known to be a high-security zone home to leaders of the IRGC and pro-Iran Palestinian factions. The Mazzeh area is also home to the UN’ headquarters, embassies and restaurants.

Saturday’s presumed Israeli strike was their second high-profile targeted assassination in Syria in less than a month. In December, an Israeli air strike killed a senior Iranian general in Syria. Razi Moussavi was the most senior commander of the Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, to be killed outside Iran since a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, killed the Force’s commander, Qasem Soleimani.

(With agency inputs)