Middle East
People and security forces gather in front of a building destroyed in a reported Israeli strike in Damascus on January 20, 2024. Photo: Louai Beshara/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday vowed that the killing of five military advisors of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by an Israeli strike in Syria will not go unanswered, as hostilities surge between the two arch-rivals.
An Israeli missile strike on Syria’s capital Damascus on Saturday, targeting a meeting of pro-Iran forces killed five military advisors, including the Guards’ intelligence chief for Syria and his deputy, IRGC-affiliated media reported.
“The continuation of such terrorist and criminal actions, which indicate the growing failure of the illegitimate Zionist regime to achieve its evil goes and the depth of desperation and helplessness against the fighters of the resistance front, will not go unanswered by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Raisi said in a condolence statement, as cited by Iranian state media.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said that ten people were killed in the strike on the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus.
Israel has intensified its attacks since October 7, carrying out at least 46 strikes on Syrian territory, according to the war monitor. The strikes have killed Iran-affiliated fighters in Syria and Lebanon, including top IRGC commanders.
The strike came four days after the IRGC launched a massive ballistic missile attack on the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil, claiming to target “spy headquarters” of anti-Iran groups and alleged Mossad bases in the city, despite Kurdish authorities vehemently rejecting the accusations that Israeli intelligence are present in the Region.
In late December, an Israeli strike on Damascus killed Seyyed Razi Mousavi, a top commander of the IRGC and one of its senior advisors in Syria.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its 12-year civil war, often claiming to strike pro-Iran militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that supports the Syrian army.
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.
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