Seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF), including two top generals, were killed after the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Damascus was hit in an airstrike which Iran and Syria have blamed on Israel. Tel Aviv has not commented on the incident.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited the destroyed building and the injured. He also inaugurated the new building of the consulate located near the targeted one.
“I am saying loudly from Damascus that the Zionist regime will be punished and that America is responsible for the regime's attack on the Iranian embassy and must be held accountable,” he was cited by Iranian state media as saying in the Syrian capital on Monday.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had nothing to do with the attack.
"We've made it very clear in private channels to Iran that we were not responsible for the strike that happened in Damascus," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a press briefing. "I will reiterate the US had no involvement in that strike, and we had no knowledge about it ahead of time.”
Iranian Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari told reporters last Monday that the attack was carried out by F-35 fighter jets, adding that between five to seven people were killed in the strikes. "Iran's response to Israel will be harsh," he threatened.
Israel, which has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its nearly 13-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah that supports the Syrian army, has not commented on either Sunday's or Monday's attack.
While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.
