An apparent airstrike in Damascus on Monday killed Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state television has confirmed.
Iranian press reported that Zahedi was meeting with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the time of the strike, but these reports could not be independently verified.
Zahedi commanded the Quds Force's Unit 18000, responsible, among other things, for smuggling ammunition and precision weapons into Lebanon. He had also commanded the IRGC's Air Force and Imam Hussein Division in the past.
Initial reports indicate that at least six people were killed in the strike, which targeted a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy.
The Iranian Embassy in Lebanon responded with fury to the alleged strike, saying: "This barbaric Israeli aggression is a flagrant violation of international laws, diplomatic norms, and the requirements of the Vienna Convention."
Some reports indicated that the building targeted served as the residence for the Iranian ambassador in Damascus.
The strikes come less than a day after the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamraya, near Damascus, was hit in alleged Israeli airstrikes
This is a developing story.
Top Iranian IRGC commander said killed in alleged Israeli strike on Damascus
The Israeli Air Force allegedly carried out an airstrike on a building next to Iran’s embassy in Syria on Monday, reportedly killing at least six people including a top Iranian commander.
The strike in the Damascus-area municipality of Mezzeh hit a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy, footage showed.
Iran’s SSN news website said the targeted building was Iran’s consulate and ambassador’s residence.
A Reuters report said the consulate was “flattened,” in what it said was “a startling apparent escalation of conflict in the Middle East that would pit Israel against Iran and its allies.”
Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited sources who indicated that at least six people were killed in the strike. It said the number was not yet officially confirmed.
Among those killed in the strike was senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official Mohammad Reza Zahedi, according to security sources speaking to Reuters and media reports in Iran.
Zahedi has been reported to be a top commander in IRGC’s Quds Force — responsible for the unit’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, and thus the most senior commander of Iranian forces in Syria and Lebanon.
Tasnim reported that Zahedi’s deputy was also killed in the strike.
Reuters quoted Iran’s ambassador in Syria warning that Iran’s response to the strike would be harsh.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, meanwhile, said in a call with his Syrian counterpart that Tehran holds Israel responsible for the consequences of the attack on its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus, Iran’s state media reported.
The strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus is “a breach of all international conventions,” Amirabdollahian added.
Footage from the scene showed that the targeted building had been destroyed in the strike. Next to the rubble, an Iranian flag was seen flying over the Iranian embassy.
Syria’s state-run SANA broadcaster claimed air defense systems had engaged the alleged Israeli attack, downing some of the missiles.
SANA said rescue authorities were working to extract dead and wounded people from under the rubble.
Faced with ongoing attacks by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group and Shiite militias throughout the Middle East in the wake of Hamas’s brutal October 7 massacre, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iran-linked terror targets in Syria, killing numerous IRGC operatives, as well as members of Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy groups.
Monday’s strike came hours after a drone launched by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq struck an Israeli Navy base in Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat, causing damage to a hangar.
Meanwhile, shortly after the Damascus strike, the Israeli military announced that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi approved new operational plans at the Northern Command headquarters in Safed earlier in the day.
1 comment:
Yes Virginia, Isaiah 17 at hand. Then we go fly high in the Dallas sky.
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