Iran accuses Israel of killing five Revolutionary Guard soldiers in Damascus

Once again, and everything indicates that it will not be the last, the scene in Syria was The wars that Israel and Iran continue directly and indirectly and through a variety of means, including silent action (espionage) and noisy action (missiles and projectiles), ranging from cyberspace to the diplomatic arena. The mourning, more widespread than ever before, resulted from a massive Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to an attack by the Islamic group Hamas on October 7, stretching from the Israeli-Lebanese border to the Red Sea. New fronts opened by other pro-Iran militias – the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have joined the fighting in Syria.

Hours after multiple missiles hit a building in a well-known residential neighborhood of Damascus, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard blamed Israel and said: Five of its soldiers died and many Syrian soldiers. They also include Sadegh Omidzadeh, the head of intelligence for the Quds Force, an affiliate of the powerful Iranian armed forces in Syria, and his assistant.

Israeli officials did not confirm or deny the allegations that are now common every time an explosion occurs in Iran or Syria, although everything indicates that it bears their signature and identifies the target: an Iranian armed wing in the area. Tehran has a large armed presence in Syria, among other reasons to strengthen the siege on its great enemy. For the Revolutionary Guard, Syrian territory is important not only because of the border with Israel, but also because Serves as a corridor to send arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon In the process it is usually bombed by Israeli warplanes.

“Once again, the brutal and criminal Zionist regime took aggressive action against the Syrian capital, Damascus, and during the airstrikes of the aggressor and usurper regime, several Syrian soldiers and four military advisers of the Islamic Republic of Iran were killed,” he said. Condemned. The Revolutionary Guards, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, warned that they reserved the right to respond “at the appropriate time and place.”, Shortly afterward, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed that “the Islamic Republic will not leave the crimes of the Zionist regime unanswered.”

Syrian government media has confirmed this The building that was attacked and destroyed was used by “Iranian advisers” While the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that it “hosted a meeting of leaders close to Iran.” According to the London-based NGO and a network of partners on the ground, the dead included “five Iranians (including three Revolutionary Guard commanders), three Syrians recruited by Iranian militias, one Iraqi and one Lebanese.”

The attack came days after Tehran announced it had fired ballistic missiles at what it called “Mossad headquarters” in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Iran, a center “for develop espionage operations and are planning terrorist actions in the region.” The Iranian bombing, which killed four civilians and was also extended to Pakistan (against the Sunni armed group Jaish al-Adl) came three weeks after an Israeli selective strike that killed Gen. The death of Razi Mousavi, an influential commander of the Quds Force and a key figure in sending weapons from Iran to Syria and especially Hezbollah.

If the air strike against Mousavi occurred in the south of Damascus, then this Saturday it occurred in the western part of the Syrian capital. Especially in the affluent neighborhood of Mezeh where strict security measures are not in place simply due to the fact that there are many embassies and home to wealthy families, but also to be one of the favorite places of residence, meetings and visits of the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and armed factions associated with its anti-Israel and anti-American axis, such as Islamic Jihad. In fact, it was initially rumored that the target of the attack was Akram al-Ajuri, the number two of this Palestinian group who had already survived an attack in Damascus in 2019.

in the noon, An Israeli drone attacked a car in the Tire area of ​​southern LebanonWithin the framework of the low-intensity war between Israel and Hezbollah since Hassan Nasrallah’s militias decided to “support” Hamas and Gaza under siege. Tsahl. According to security sources cited by Reuters after the attack, which killed four people, the targets of the missiles were members of Hamas in Lebanon, although other sources indicated they were from Hezbollah.

Beyond the sabotage campaign of the Iranian nuclear program conducted by the Mossad, the Israeli Air Force has been targeting Iranian or pro-Iranian targets in Syria, particularly weapons depots and convoys, for ten years. “We cannot allow Iran to turn Syria on our border into a terrorist staging ground against us,” a senior security commander told us in Tel Aviv a few months ago.

Facing projectiles and missiles simultaneously fired by Iran-backed militias – Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Houthis, Hezbollah – over the past three months, the Israeli Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu This Thursday a journalist asked why his country limited itself to dealing with Iran’s “proxies” and did not attack the Islamic Republic directly. Netanyahu answered a question: “Who told you we didn’t attack Iran?”, After a three-second-long silence at the press conference, he said: “We attack. Iran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles in the environment… Everything you see, from the Houthis to Hezbollah and Hamas “Iran is behind this.”