Four members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard die in an airstrike in Damascus

Syria has accused Israel of launching an airstrike today against a residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus, killing four members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including the body's intelligence chief in Syria and his deputy,  and several Syrian military personnel, according to Iranian media reports.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
19 January 2024 Friday 15:21
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Four members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard die in an airstrike in Damascus

Syria has accused Israel of launching an airstrike today against a residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus, killing four members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including the body's intelligence chief in Syria and his deputy,  and several Syrian military personnel, according to Iranian media reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights assured that the Israeli missile directed at a four-story block, which ended up completely destroyed, caused the death of five people. The NGO, whose headquarters are in the United Kingdom and which has a wide network of collaborators on the ground, indicated that there was "a meeting of leaders close to Iran" in the building.

Mezzeh is a neighborhood located in the west of Damascus and one of the most affluent in the capital where several embassies and homes of wealthy families are located. Likewise, it is known as a fortified district, where leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard militia and Palestinians close to Iran often reside and visit. So far, Israel has not commented on the matter.

The deaths of the four Iranian soldiers occur after early Tuesday morning, Iran bombed alleged Israeli targets on Iraqi soil, where two people died. In its statement, the Revolutionary Guard then reported that the place in Iraqi Kurdistan that it attacked with missiles was the "center for developing espionage operations and planning terrorist actions in the region, and especially in our country" of the espionage of "the entity Zionist", as they usually refer to the State of Israel in Iran. Tehran also bombed Syria and Pakistan.

Iran justified these attacks by the Kerman attacks, which left 94 dead this month; an attack against a police station in which 11 police officers died and for the death of Iranian commanders and the so-called Axis of Resistance in recent weeks in Syria and Iraq.

These bombings occur at a time of tension in the Middle East due to the war in Gaza, and amid repeated attacks by pro-Iranian militias in Iraq against US positions in the country and in Syria, in addition to assaults by the Houthis. of Yemen against ships in the Red Sea.

Iran has been a key ally of Damascus in the war in Syria, where Tehran has sent soldiers and military advisers, as well as providing economic and political support to its main ally in the Middle East.