Iran yesterday warned arch foe Israel that it would punish an airstrike that killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, two of them generals, at its consular annex in Damascus.
Four other people were also reported killed in Monday’s strike, which leveled the five-story building adjacent to the Iranian embassy and further stoked tensions already running high as the Gaza war nears the end of its sixth month.
Israel declined to comment on the strike, which fueled Middle East tensions already enflamed by the war in Gaza between Israel and Iran ally Hamas.
Photo: AFP
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that Israel would be punished.
“The evil Zionist regime will be punished at the hands of our brave men. We will make them regret this crime and the other ones,” Khamenei said in a message published on his official Web site.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the attack as a “clear violation of international regulations” which “will not go unanswered.”
“After repeated defeats and failures against the faith and will of the Resistance Front fighters, the Zionist regime has put blind assassinations on its agenda in the struggle to save itself,” Raisi said on his office’s Web site.
The UN Security Council was to discuss the strike later yesterday at a meeting requested by Syrian ally Russia.
The strike on the annex killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including two commanders of its Quds Force foreign operations arm, brigadier generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, Iranian officials said.
Zahedi, 63, had held a succession of commands in the force in a Guards career spanning more than four decades.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the more than decade-old conflict in Syria, said the strike killed “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters.”
Iraian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari told Iranian state TV that the attack “was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.
Only the gate of the building was left standing after the attack, with a sign reading “the consular section of the embassy of Iran.”
Windows were shattered within a 500m radius and many parked cars were damaged by the blast.
The adjacent facade of the Iranian embassy is decorated with a large portrait of Qasem Soleimani, a longtime Quds Force chief who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on X that Israel’s main backer, the US, also bore responsibility for the strike, even though an unidentified US official quoted by Axios said Washington “had no involvement” or advanced knowledge of it.
He said the ministry had summoned a diplomat from the Swiss embassy, which looks after US interests in Iran, to hear its protest.
“An important message was sent to the American government as the supporter of the Zionist regime. America must be held accountable,” he said in the post.
Iran’s mission to the UN warned that the strike could “potentially ignite more conflict involving other nations” and called on the Security Council “to condemn this unjustified criminal act.”
Iran’s allies voiced support for its position.
“China condemns the attack,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said, adding: “The security of diplomatic institutions cannot be violated, and Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity should be respected.”
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of international law” and warned of “more chaos and instability” in the region.
Russia blamed the Israeli air force for the “unacceptable attack against the Iranian consular mission in Syria.”
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