Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says 2 of its generals killed in strike on Syrian consulate
- Revolutionary Guards said seven of its members were killed in the strike that Syrian officials and state media have pinned on Israel
- Mohammad Reza Sahedi and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Haji were killed in the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, IRGC said
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Monday said on Monday that seven of its members were killed in an air strike on Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital.
Syrian officials and state media pinned the attack on Israel, which declined to comment.
The strike on Iran’s embassy compound appears to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of Iranian military officials and their allies in Syria, which have intensified since Hamas militants – who are supported by Iran – attacked Israel on October 7.
Two brigadier generals, Mohammad Reza Sahedi and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Haji, were killed in the consular section of the Iranian embassy in the capital Damascus, the IRGC said on Monday evening. Five other members of the Revolutionary Guards were also killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed the killing of a leader of the Quds Force, one of five branches of the IRGC.
Monday’s attack destroyed an annex next to the Iranian embassy that served as the consulate in the western Damascus neighbourhood, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said.
“The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” the agency said, quoting a Syrian military source.
Iran vowed “decisive response” after the attack. In an interview broadcast on state television Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Damascus, said: “At least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets.” He did not give the source of his information about the aircraft.
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Asked about the strike, an Israeli military spokesman said: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media”.
The New York Times newspaper cited four unnamed Israeli officials as acknowledging Israel had carried out the attack.
US President Joe Biden is aware of reports of Israeli air strikes in Damascus and the “team is looking into it”, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington remained “concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region” but did not expect the strike to affect talks on freeing Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group warned that Israel will pay for the attack.
“Certainly, this crime will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Agence France-Presse images showed a pile of rubble about two storeys high beside a fenced compound.
Iranian media also reported that the strikes in Damascus completely destroyed the annex building, and that the ambassador was unharmed.
“Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not harmed in the Israeli attack,” Iran’s Nour news agency said.
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Syria’s defence ministry said there were many “wounded, killed” in an Israeli strike, and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad denounced the attack after visiting the site.
“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack that targeted the Iranian consulate building in Damascus killing a number of innocent people,” Mekdad said in a statement carried by state media SANA.
SANA earlier reported that “our air-defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.
Iran’s UN mission described the strike as a “flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the foundational principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises”.
Saying the strike was “a significant threat to regional peace and security,” the Iranian mission urged the UN Security Council to condemn the attack and said Tehran reserved the right “to take a decisive response”.
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Hezbollah, the Lebanese group seen as Iran’s most powerful armed proxy in the region, vowed to retaliate. “This crime will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge,” the group said in a statement.
Muslim nations including Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also condemned the attack, as did Russia.
Israeli strikes on targets in Syria, mostly Syrian army positions as well as Iran-backed combatants including fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, have intensified since October when Israel began fighting Hezbollah-allied Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, Israel’s arch enemy.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire along the Lebanese border.
The incident in Damascus came three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, said the monitor.
“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told Agence France-Presse after the Friday strikes.
“Israel warplanes hit targets in both countries almost daily in a sustained effort to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure and to also tarnish the group’s image,” he said.
“Israeli strikes have clearly escalated in size and depth” in Lebanon, he added.
Reporting by Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, dpa
