01 April 2024 , 17:32
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Mohammad Reza Zahedi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps reportedly among dead in Damascus attack
Israeli warplanes have struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing six people reportedly including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Reporters at the scene in the Mezzeh district of the Syrian capital saw smoke rising from the rubble of a building that had been flattened, and emergency vehicles parked outside.
Syrian state television confirmed that the consulate building had been attacked. Photograph: Firas Makdesi/Reuters
A Lebanese security source told Reuters that Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was among those killed in the attack. An Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”
Syrian state television confirmed the consulate building had been attacked. Earlier, Iranian media reported that a building close to the embassy had been hit, and Iran’s student news agency reported that the target was the consulate and ambassador’s residence.
Iranian media also reported that the strikes in Damascus completely destroyed the annexe building, and that the ambassador was unharmed. “Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not harmed in the Israeli attack,” the Nour news agency said.
Iranian media reported that an annexe building to the consulate had been destroyed. Photograph: Firas Makdesi/Reuters
Since the Iran-backed Palestinian faction Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, Israel has ramped up airstrikes in Syria against Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both of which support the government of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said: “Israeli missiles … destroyed the building of an annexe to the Iranian embassy … in Damascus, killing six people.”
Syria’s official Sana news agency earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.
The incident came days after the observatory reported Israeli strikes in Syria that killed 53 people, including 38 soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah. It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October, said the monitor.