(Damascus) A raid blamed on Israel targeted an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus on Monday, killing eight people according to an NGO, including at least five members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a context tense regional situation against a backdrop of war in the Gaza Strip.
Tehran has promised to retaliate for this unprecedented raid on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria, where Iran and its allies support the power of Bashar al-Assad.
“The Israeli enemy launched airstrikes from the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian embassy annex in Damascus,” the Syrian Defense Ministry said.
An AFP journalist noted that the annex, adjoining the Iranian embassy in Damascus in the Mazzeh district of Damascus which houses many embassies and United Nations buildings, had been completely destroyed.
PHOTO FIRAS MAKDESI, REUTERS
“All those inside were killed or injured,” the ministry continued.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in the country, reported eight deaths in this “Israeli missile” attack, including two Iranian “advisors” and five members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iranian media confirmed the deaths of at least five members of the Guards, including a commander, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. He is one of the top commanders of the Quds Force, according to Iranian state television Irib.
The Quds Force is considered the elite unit of the Guardians, which intervenes beyond the borders to, according to Tehran, help Iran’s neighbors and ensure the “stability” of the region against Western interference.
In Tehran, the Iranian Nour news agency reported that “Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not injured in the Israeli attack.”
In a statement carried by Iranian media, the ambassador said the embassy annex had been targeted by “six missiles fired by F-35 jets.”
He assured that Iran would provide “a decisive response” to this attack.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, fears have grown that the conflict will take a regional turn, with Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the rest of the region having mobilized in favor of Palestinian Hamas.
Significant damage
The consular annex was reduced to a state of ruin and only the entrance door remained, bearing the words “consular section of the Iranian embassy”, according to the AFP journalist who saw gutted furniture. among the rubble.
The targeted building adjoins the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the front of which is decorated with a huge portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East, killed in January 2020 in an American drone attack in Iraq.
The windows of buildings up to 500 meters away were broken and a large number of cars damaged, according to the journalist.
PHOTO FIRAS MAKDESI, REUTERS
Security forces blocked access to the area.
“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack” which killed “a number of innocent people,” declared Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, who rushed to the scene, in a statement carried by the official Syrian press agency. Sana.
Many Iranian military officials have been targeted in the past by strikes in Syria.
Monday’s raid is the fifth to target Syria in eight days.
At the end of December, Brigadier General Razi Mousavi, a key commander of the Quds Force, was killed in a missile strike south of Damascus.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in neighboring Syria against Syrian government positions, pro-Iranian groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iranian military targets since the start of the war in that country in 2011.
The strikes have intensified since the start on October 7 of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah and Iran, enemies of Israel.
At the same time, Israeli strikes target Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, from where the pro-Iranian Shiite formation carries out attacks against Israel.
Israel rarely comments on its strikes in Syria but says it would not allow Iran, its sworn enemy, to gain a foothold on its border.