Update: 2:26 HOLY HELL UPDATE—Iranian State Media has now confirmed that in addition to Mohammad-Reza Zahedi and Mohammad-Haji Rahim that Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the Chief of the General Staff for IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon was also Killed in the Israeli Airstrike on Damascus, with it now appearing that at least 3 Brigadier Generals were Eliminated in today’s Strike.
Israeli airstrike destroys Iran’s consulate in Damascus, occupants killed or wounded, Syria says
The attack killed Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to two television channels in Syria — the Iranian Arabic-language channel Al-Alam, and pan-Arab channel Al-Mayadeen.
An Israeli airstrike has destroyed the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing a senior Iranian military adviser and roughly a handful of other people, Syrian state media said Monday.
The strike on the Iranian consulate building could mark an escalation of the Israeli military’s ongoing targeting of Iranian military officials and allies in Syria, which have intensified since the onset of its war with Hamas in Gaza on Oct.7.
Iranian Ambassador Hossein Akbari condemned Israel and said as many as seven people were killed, but first responders were still searching for any other bodies under the rubble. He said two police officers who guard the building were wounded.
Akbari vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
In comments to the media after meeting Akbari, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said “several” people were killed. Mekdad in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, condemned Israel over the attack.
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Though it rarely acknowledges its actions in Syria, Israel has said it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
An Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood in December killed a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, Seyed Razi Mousavi. A similar strike on a building in Damascus in January killed at least five Iranian advisers. Last week, airstrikes over the strategic eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour near the Iraqi border killed an Iranian adviser.