According to government media, 5 Iranian advisers were killed in an Israeli attack in the Syrian capital.
An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, according to Syrian and Iranian state media.
The Syrian army said the structure, located in the heavily fortified area of Mazzeh in western Damascus, was completely destroyed, adding that the Israeli Air Force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-held Golan Heights. The Israeli military had no comment.
A few hours later, an Israeli drone strike on a car near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two people, including a Hezbollah member and two people in the vehicle. They were in a nearby garden. According to an official with the group and Lebanon’s state news agency. One of the dead was local Hezbollah commander Ali Hudruj, the official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations, without giving further details.
Nour News, considered a media outlet close to the Islamic Republic’s intelligence apparatus, identified two of the dead as General Sadegh Omidzadeh, deputy director of intelligence for the Quds Force division in Syria; and his lieutenant, known de guerre Haj Gholam.
The Guard later issued a statement identifying the five dead as Hojjatollah Omidwar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi, Saeed Karimi and Mohammad Amin Samadi. He did not rank them. The gap in information has not been resolved at this time.
At least six people – five Iranians and one Syrian – were killed when the missile exploded during a meeting of officials from Iran-backed groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group that monitors the war. Observatory director Rami Abdurahman said three Iranian civilians were commanders and four others were missing in the debris.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the Israeli attack on Damascus and said “the Islamic Republic will not leave the crimes of the Zionist regime unanswered,” Iran’s state television Telegram channel reported.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani condemned the Israeli attack in a statement, saying that “Without any doubt, the blood of these high-ranking martyrs will not go in vain.”
Iran renewed efforts to link Israel to the Islamic State group, something its leaders have been trying to do since a suicide bombing by extremists killed more than 90 people in Iran in early January .
Security forces were deployed around the destroyed four-storey building and ambulances and fire engines could be seen in the area. An operation is being conducted to search for people trapped under the debris. Windows of nearby buildings were broken.
A shopkeeper whose business is near the site of the attack said he heard five consecutive explosions around 9:15 a.m. and later saw the bodies of a man and a woman, as well as three injured people, coming out.
“The store shook. “I stayed inside for a few seconds and then came out and saw smoke coming from the back of the mosque,” the man, who declined to be identified for security reasons, told The Associated Press.
“What happened was terrible. I fainted,” said Khalid Maved, who lives near the site.
The incident comes at a time when tensions are rising in the region as Israel escalates its offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli military campaign, the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed about 25,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. In addition, it has caused widespread destruction and forced more than 80% of its 2.3 million residents to flee their homes.
The war in the Palestinian territories began after an unprecedented cross-border attack launched by Hamas on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 others hostage. The rebels are still believed to be holding about 130 hostages. This has increased tensions throughout the Middle East and threatens to ignite other conflicts.
Last month, Iranian General Razi Mousavi, a veteran adviser to Tehran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Damascus suburb. In recent years, Israel has also attacked Palestinian and Lebanese troops on Syrian soil.
Iranian and Syrian officials have long acknowledged that Tehran has military advisers and experts in Syria, but deny the presence of ground troops. Thousands of fighters from groups backed by the Islamic Republic are taking part in the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, helping to tip the balance in President Bashar Assad’s favor.
Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on targets in government-controlled areas in recent years.
Israeli officials do not generally acknowledge their operations in Syria, but have indicated that they attack targets of Iran-linked rebel groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to fight on Assad’s side. sent it.
Earlier this month, Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas commander, was killed in an attack on Israel in Beirut.
In recent weeks, rockets have been fired from Syria toward northern Israel and the Golan Heights, occupied by Israeli troops. At the same time, clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are also backed by Iran, have increased tensions.
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Maroué reported from Beirut, Lebanon. Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.