‘Israel Air Strike’ Kills Iran Revolutionary Guards, Intelligence Chief

‘Israel Air Strike’ Kills Iran Revolutionary Guards, Intelligence Chief

George Whitten and Stefan J. Bos

An Israeli missile strike on Syria’s capital, Damascus, killed at least four key members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, including the force’s information unit chief, Syrian and Iranian security officials said Saturday.

The well-informed war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put the death toll slightly higher, saying that an “Israeli missile strike targeted a four-story building, killing five people.”

The strike, rocking Damascus’s Mazzeh neighborhood, destroyed “the whole building where Iran-aligned leaders were meeting,” it added.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the full name of the targeted group, confirmed the strike and suggested the total death toll was higher than five.

It said that among the dead were four of its “military advisers” and several Syrian forces. “Once more, the criminal Zionist regime has moved to violate the city of Damascus, the Syrian capital,” it said, referring to Israel.

“And during an airstrike by the fighter jets of the invading and occupying regime, a number of Syrian forces and four military advisers of the Islamic Republic of Iran were martyred.”

Iranian state television called it a “terrorist” attack by Israel.

Al Jazeera television reported that one of the IRGC members killed was believed to be the head of the intelligence department of the Quds force, the most elite inside the IRGC.

Footage released by the Iranian state-owned Press TV network monitored by Worthy News purportedly showed “extensive devastation” to the building and destroyed cars.

SOHR, the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria, said the targeted Mazzah neighborhood is known to be a high-security zone. It is home to leaders of both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and pro-Iran Palestinian factions, as well as a United Nations headquarters, embassies, and restaurants.

“They were for sure targeting senior members” of those groups, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of SOHR, in published remarks.

Saturday’s attack came shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu suggested this week that Israel had begun attacking Iran.

The latest strike appeared to be part of that strategy, though Israel didn’t immediately comment.

Israel also targets Iran-backed militia in other countries, including neighboring Lebanon, where an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon on Saturday reportedly killed two members of Hamas. They died while traveling in a car, security sources in Lebanon said.

MORE AIR STRIKES

Israel has been carrying out airstrikes in southern Lebanon against Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and their Lebanon-based ally Hezbollah, a powerful armed group.

Hezbollah has fired rockets across the border at Israel, killing several and forcing tens of thousands to leave their homes.

Witnesses said Israel hit targets across Gaza on Saturday while its planes dropped leaflets in the southern Rafah area, urging Palestinians seeking refuge there to help locate hostages held by Hamas.

The leaflets showed photos of 33 hostages, their names written in Arabic, urging the displaced to make contact. “Do you want to return home? Please make the call if you recognize one of them,” the leaflets read.