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Two high-ranking generals are killed in an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Israel has so far declined to comment.
Damascus - An Israeli airstrike hit a building next to the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday. According to Iranian state media, two high-ranking members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) were killed in the attack.
The two generals killed were senior commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haj Rahimi, according to an IRGC statement. In addition to the two men, five other officers were killed in the attack.
Iran's UN Ambassador Ershadi: Iran reserves the right to “react decisively”
“Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to respond decisively to such reprehensible actions,” Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s UN ambassador, wrote in a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations hours after the attack United Nations António Guterres. The Israeli military, which typically does not confirm attacks in Syria, declined to comment.
Israel has been carrying out attacks in Syria against Iran and its allies for years, including during its six-month military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following its attacks on October 7, 2023. However, Monday's attack was both because of its location - a diplomatic building that traditionally exempt from combat operations - as well as notable because of the high priority of its targets.
Rescue workers inspect the rubble of a building attached to the Iranian embassy in Damascus after the attack. © Syrian Arab News Agency/Imago
Killed general was previously identified as supporting Hezbollah militant groups
Commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi was identified as the head of Iran's Quds Force in Lebanon in a 2010 Treasury Department sanctions announcement that accused him of playing a key role in Iran's support of Hezbollah. He allegedly acted as an intermediary between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence and was “tasked with securing arms shipments,” another Justice Department statement said.
In a statement, Hezbollah praised Zahedi as an "exemplary sacrificer in his love for the resistance in Lebanon and the region" and warned that "this crime will not pass without the enemy receiving his punishment and revenge." As head of the IRGC, Zahedi oversaw daily operations in Syria and Lebanon, according to Arash Azizi, an Iran analyst and historian.
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Azizi explains: “IRGC leaders who are on the front lines in Israel's neighboring states are high-value targets.” This is particularly true for those involved in operations with Hamas and Hezbollah. What makes Monday's attack "escalating and unprecedented" is the fact that "the building where Zahedi and his colleagues were hit belongs to Iran and is right next to the embassy," Azizi said.
Images of the aftermath of the attack from Damascus on Monday showed thick clouds of smoke rising from a partially collapsed building that served as a consulate and adjoins the Iranian embassy. “We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack,” Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad said, according to the Syrian state news agency
Sana
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In advance: A drone attack on the southern Israeli city of Eilat by fighters allied with Iran
The attack in Damascus followed an overnight drone strike on the southern Israeli city of Eilat, which was later claimed by Iran-aligned militants in Iraq. According to the Israeli military, sirens sounded in Eilat on Monday after troops "identified from the air a suspicious target that was flying toward Israeli territory from the east" and eventually fell on a military base.
No injuries were reported. “An Iranian-made and Iranian-controlled drone hit a naval base,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Monday. “This is a very serious incident.”
Iran's geopolitical influence in the region has grown, among other things, through the “Axis of Resistance”.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard was founded after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as a counterweight to the country's military. As parallel security forces reporting directly to Iran's Supreme Leader, they have played a central role in expanding the country's influence across the region. This was done, among other things, by supporting a network of allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen - described by Tehran as the “Axis of Resistance”.
By working with proxies, observers say the IRGC is able to demonstrate Iranian power while maintaining a strategic distance from the fight. But as Iran's allies have stepped up their attacks in response to the war in Gaza - Yemen's Houthi rebels are shelling merchant ships in the Red Sea, Hezbollah is engaged in almost daily firefights with Israel in southern Lebanon, and Iraqi and Syrian fighters are taking US military bases targeted - the risk of a broader conflict in the region has increased.
The risk of a broader conflict in the region is growing every day
Dozens of Syrian soldiers and several Hezbollah members were killed in suspected Israeli strikes near the city of Aleppo early Friday, the Syrian state news agency reported. At the end of December, according to Iranian state media, a “senior adviser” to the IRGC was killed in an Israeli attack outside Damascus. Another member of the IRGC, reportedly responsible for facilitating Iranian oil shipments to Syria, was killed in an attack along Syria's Mediterranean coast in early March.
UN Ambassador Ershadi darkly suggests that Monday's attack "could heighten tensions in the region and potentially trigger further conflict with other nations." The attack was immediately condemned by Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, which signed a normalization agreement with Israel in 2020.
To the authors
Susannah George
is the Washington Post's Gulf bureau chief, based in Dubai, where she leads coverage of the oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies and their neighbor, Iran. She previously served as head of the Post's Afghanistan-Pakistan office for four years. Cate Brown also contributed to this report.
Mohamad El Chamaa
is a Beirut-based researcher and reporter for The Washington Post, covering Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf region. The trained urban planner has previously worked on post-disaster housing construction and worked as a reporter for L'Orient Today.
Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates condemned the attack on the Iranian consulate
Regional officials told The Washington Post in February that Iran had been secretly urging Hezbollah and other armed groups to show restraint toward U.S. forces so as not to provoke a larger war. Analysts fear Monday's attack could change Tehran's calculus.
“We are now in a very dangerous situation,” says Azizi. Iran has “a brilliant axis of resistance with fighters across the region, but if they cannot respond to Israel killing commander after commander, they clearly have no deterrent.”
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German. This article was first published in English on April 2, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.