Five members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including the head of the intelligence services for Syria, died on Saturday in Damascus in
a bombing attributed to Israel
by Tehran, which threatened revenge.
The Guardians, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, accused Israel of having carried out the attack on the Syrian capital with "fighter planes."
They initially indicated that four of their "military advisors" as well as "members of the Syrian forces" died in the bombing, and a few hours later they reported the death of another member of the Guardians, who had been wounded.
The Iranian Mehr agency stated that the dead included the Guardians' head of intelligence for Syria and his deputy.
Smoke over Damascus, the Syrian capital, after the bombing this Saturday, of which Iran accuses Israel.
Photo: REUTERS
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO based in the United Kingdom that has a network of informants in Syria, had reported a death toll of 10.
The bombed building, located in the Mazzeh neighborhood,
was destroyed
and cordoned off, an AFP journalist confirmed.
According to the OSDH, a meeting of "pro-Iran leaders" was taking place
there .
The organization added that the Mazzeh neighborhood is known for housing pro-Iranian Palestinian factions and commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
"It is certain that (the bombs) were aimed at senior leaders" of those groups, said the president of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman.
In the Mazzeh neighborhood there are also United Nations offices, embassies and restaurants.
"The noise was similar to that of a missile explosion, and minutes later I heard ambulances," said a resident of the area.
In Israel, the army told AFP that it "does not comment on information from foreign media."
Firefighters, security personnel and neighbors, in front of the Damascus building that was destroyed by the attack, this Saturday.
Photo: AFP
The official Syrian press also reported on the attack,
accusing Israel without further details.
He threatens to "respond"
The Iranian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of the bombing and indicated that it "reserves the right to respond" to that attack "at the appropriate time and place."
He also accused Israel, at war for more than three months with the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, of being involved in a
"desperate attempt to spread instability
and insecurity in the region."
The Syrian regime is part, along with Iran, the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels of Yemen, of the so-called
"axis of resistance", which has Israel as a regional enemy.
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of bombings in its territory, directed especially against forces related to Iran, its regional rival, but also against positions of the Damascus army.
In recent months there have also been Israeli attacks on the airports of Damascus and Aleppo, northern Syria.
Most of the attacks "probably aim to disrupt Iranian arms deliveries to Hezbollah and Iranian-aligned groups in Syria," explains Aron Lund, an analyst at the think tank Century International.
Israel believes that sophisticated weapons, including ballistic missile and drone components, are being delivered "both by land, from Iraq," and "by air to Syrian airports," this analyst adds.
The bombings have intensified since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, following the deadly incursion of the Islamist movement, in power in Gaza, in southern Israel.
In December, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Razi Mousavi, head of logistics in Syria for the "axis of resistance," was killed in an Israeli bombing in Syria, according to Tehran.
In neighboring Lebanon, Hamas number two Saleh al Aruri was killed in early January in an Israeli attack in the south of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, another pro-Iran movement in the region.
Source: AFP
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