The Iran Revolutionary Guards strongly condemned the assault in an announcement.
Tehran:
Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus Monday, Syrian and Iranian officers mentioned, with a prime Revolutionary Guard commander amongst seven members the power mentioned had been killed, amid worsening regional tensions.
Israel mentioned it could not touch upon the reported assault, however Iranian officers vowed a stiff response with fears of even additional violence between Israel and Iran’s allies triggered by the Gaza struggle.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps named Brigadier Common Mohammad Reza Zahedi and one other high-ranking officer, Brigadier Common Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, as amongst seven of its members killed.
Britain-based struggle monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned 11 individuals, together with a number of Guards members, had been killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the constructing of an annex to the Iranian embassy”.
The toll consists of “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters, none of them civilians,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory with a community of sources in Syria, advised AFP.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, giving a decrease toll, advised Iranian state TV that “not less than 5 individuals had been killed within the assault which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles on the constructing.
AFP reporters noticed the annex constructing had caved in, and emergency companies had been speeding to seek for victims underneath the rubble as sirens wailed within the upscale Damascus district of Mazzeh.
Safety personnel shielded the location the place earth-moving tools was introduced in to clear the particles and take away charred automobiles from the highway exterior, watched by a crowd of onlookers.
Syria’s defence ministry mentioned “the assault destroyed all the constructing, killing and injuring everybody inside, and work is underway to get well the our bodies and rescue the wounded from underneath the rubble”.
– Regional tensions –
Iranian state TV mentioned Zahedi — a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ international operations arm, the Quds Pressure — was among the many useless.
The Observatory mentioned Zahedi served because the chief of the Quds Pressure for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, including that he was killed alongside together with his deputy, his aide, and the Quds power chief of workers for a similar three nations.
Two different members of the Guards and two Iranian advisers had been additionally killed within the strike, the Observatory mentioned.
The focused constructing is subsequent to the Iranian embassy, the entrance of which is adorned with a big portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s navy operations within the Center East, killed in January 2020 in an American drone strike in Iraq.
The Damascus strikes had been the fifth in every week to hit Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is supported by Iran, Israel’s long-time arch foe within the area.
Syria’s state information company SANA had earlier reported that “our air defence methods confronted enemy targets within the neighborhood of Damascus”.
Iran’s ambassador, Akbari, vowed the assault “will result in our decisive response”, including “the Israeli assault on the Iranian consulate reveals the truth of the Zionist entity which recognises no worldwide legal guidelines and does all that’s inhumane to realize its targets”.
Iranian International Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian known as for a “critical response by the worldwide neighborhood”.
– ‘Heinous assault’ –
Solely the gate of the constructing was left standing after the assault, with an indication mentioning “the consular part of the embassy of Iran”, an AFP journalist mentioned.
Window panes in buildings inside a 500-metre (550 yard) radius had been shattered, and lots of parked automobiles had been broken by the blast.
Syrian International Minister Faisal Mekdad additionally denounced the assault after visiting the location, calling it a “heinous terrorist assault… killing a variety of harmless individuals”, in an announcement carried by SANA.
The Gaza struggle, which began with the October 7 Hamas assault on southern Israel, has devastated the coastal territory and likewise seen Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah change close to every day cross-border fireplace.
Israel has additionally struck targets in Syria, largely military positions in addition to these of Iran-backed combatants.
Hamas condemned “within the strongest phrases” the assault which it known as a “harmful escalation.”
Moscow, a Damascus ally together with Tehran, blamed “the Israeli Air Pressure” for the “unacceptable assault towards the Iranian consular mission in Syria.”
The Damascus strike got here three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that had killed 53 individuals in Syria, together with 38 troopers and 7 members of Hezbollah.
It was the very best Syrian military toll in Israeli strikes for the reason that Israel-Hamas struggle started, mentioned the monitor.
“Syria and Lebanon have turn into one prolonged battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Close to East and Gulf Army Evaluation, advised AFP after the Friday strikes.
The bloodiest ever Gaza struggle erupted with the Palestinian militants’ unprecedented October 7 assault which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, largely civilians, in accordance with an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory marketing campaign, aimed toward destroying Hamas, has killed not less than 32,845 individuals, largely girls and youngsters, in accordance with the Gaza well being ministry.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
