An Israeli strike on Damascus this Saturday killed five members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Iran’s state media report.
In yet another escalation move in the already chaotic Middle East region, Israeli jet fighters targeted a building in Syria’s capital of Damascus this Saturday morning and killed several members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Iran’s state media report.
“An Israeli missile strike targeted a four-story building, killing five people… and destroying the whole building where Iran-aligned leaders were meeting,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian state media SANA also covered the news and said in a special report that the attack on Saturday took place in the Mazzeh neighborhood, located in southwest of central Damascus, adding that “Israeli aggression” targeted the building. The area is also home to the United Nations’ headquarters and several embassies.
Another immediate report by the UK-based monitor of BBC said that the targeted neighborhood is known to be a high-security zone home to leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and pro-Iran Palestinian factions. “They were for sure targeting senior members” of those groups, said the BBC report.
Iran’s media confirmed the news
Iranian state media confirmed the news, with the country’s Mehr news agency saying that “the Revolutionary Guards’ Syria intel chief, his deputy and two other Guards members were martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel.”
“Earlier on Saturday, an informed source told Mehr News Agency that 2 senior Iranian military advisors were martyred in the Zionist strike on Damascus. According to the latest reports, the chief of the IRGC intelligence in Syria and his deputy along with 2 other members of IRGC were martyred during this attack in Syria,” the report noted.
During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions. In the past few weeks, however, Israel has been escalating tensions with Iran and increased its attacks on an unprecedented scale.
In mid-December, for example, an Israeli strike killed two Guards members in Damascus, and another on December 25 killed a senior adviser to the Guards who was overseeing military coordination between Syria and Iran. But Iran has rarely left Israel’s attacks un-responded, a big concern for Tel Aviv.
Since 2011, when Syria was hit by a civil war, the Arab country has endured a bloody conflict that has claimed over half a million lives and displaced several million people and plunged. The war has also turned the country into a battle field for third parties, such as Israel, to pursue their military goals.
