A military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has warned that no Israeli embassy is "safe"
after seven Iranian soldiers were killed in an attack blamed on Israel on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.
"No Israeli embassy is safe," declared Revolutionary Guard General Yahya Rahim Safavi, quoted by the local Isna agency.
Iran has vowed to retaliate
after Israeli airstrikes that destroyed the consular annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Monday.
The attack killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guard
, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, including two high-ranking officers.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
the total number of fatalities was 16.
Rahim Safavi stated that, due to Iranian threats, Israel has closed "out of fear" 27 embassies, including those in "Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain and Turkey", information that could not be confirmed by other sources.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Wednesday that Israel
would receive "a slap in the face" for the attack.
US aid
In addition, Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amir Abdolahian stated that Israel used
US-made fighter jets and missiles
in the attack on its consulate in Syria and insisted that Tehran will punish the "aggressors."
Debris in the war-torn Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, Syria. Photo EFE
"This act of the Zionist regime (Israel) was a terrorist attack in which they used fighter jets and missiles manufactured by the United States," Abdolahian said in a meeting in Muscat, capital of Oman, with senior Yemeni Houthi official Mohamed Abdul Salam.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, apart from taking legal measures recognized in international law,
will demand accountability and punish the aggressors
," said the Iranian diplomat.
In the meeting with Abdul, the Houthis' chief negotiator with Saudi Arabia, Abdolahian described
the attacks against this country by the United States and the United Kingdom as a
"violation of the territorial integrity" of Yemen.
At the same time, the Iranian diplomat described these attacks as "support for the crimes of the Zionist regime against the oppressed Palestinian nation."
Abdolahian arrived in Oman this Sunday on an official visit and will then travel to Syria,
according to regional media reports not confirmed by the Iranian authorities.
The diplomat will thus travel to Damascus where on Monday there was an attack against the Iranian consulate in which seven members of the Revolutionary Guard and six Syrian citizens died, and for which Tehran has blamed Tel Aviv.
The diplomat's warnings join the list of Iranian authorities who have vowed revenge for Monday's attack on the Iranian consulate.
This same Sunday, a military advisor to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, stated that Israel's embassies "are no longer secure," suggesting that Tehran could attack the Jewish state's diplomatic headquarters.
In response to calls for Iranian retaliation, Israeli authorities have assured that Israel is on "high alert" and
ready for "a variety of scenarios."
Source: AFP and EFE
P.B.