The hit killed senior commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Brig. Gen. Mohammad Hadi Haj Rahimi, along side 5 alternative officials, in line with a statement from the IRGC.
“Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to take a decisive response to such reprehensible acts,” Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Countries, wrote overdue Monday in a letter to the U.N. secretary common.
Israel’s army, which normally does now not verify moves in Syria, declined to remark.
Israel has performed moves in Syria towards Iran and its allies for years and all through its six-month army marketing campaign towards Hamas in Gaza. However Monday’s assault stood out each as a result of its location — in a diplomatic compound, historically immune from hostilities — and as a result of the seniority of the plain goal.
Zahedi used to be known as the top of Iran’s Quds Power in Lebanon in a 2010 Treasury Area sanctions announcement that accused him of enjoying “a key role in Iran’s support to Hizballah.” He acted as “a liaison” between the Lebanese militant staff Hezbollah and Syrian wisdom and used to be “charged with guaranteeing weapons shipments,” in line with the Justice Area commentary.
In a commentary, Hezbollah eulogized 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 punishment and revenge.”
As head of the IRGC within the Levant, Zahedi ran day by day operations in Syria and Lebanon, in line with Arash Azizi, an Iran analyst and historian.
“IRGC leadership who are on the front lines of the states neighboring Israel are high-value targets,” stated Azizi, “especially those involved in conducting operations with Hamas and Hezbollah.”
What makes Monday’s hit “escalatory and unprecedented,” Azizi added, is that “the building where Zahedi and his colleagues were hit is owned by Iran, and it’s next to the embassy.”
Photographs of the aftermath from Damascus on Monday confirmed thick clouds of smoke emerging from a in part collapsed construction that served as Iran’s consulate, adjoining to the Iranian Embassy.
“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack,” Syrian Overseas Minister Faisal al-Miqdad stated, in line with Sana, Syria’s atmosphere information company.
The hit in Damascus adopted a drone attack in a single day within the southern Israeli town of Eilat, next claimed by means of Iranian-aligned militants in Iraq. Israel’s army stated sirens sounded in Eilat on Monday nearest troops “identified a suspicious aerial target that crossed from the east toward Israeli territory,” in the long run falling on an army bottom. Incorrect accidents had been reported.
“A UAV made in Iran and directed by Iranians hit a naval base,” Israel Protection Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari stated Monday. “It is a very serious incident.”
The IRGC used to be arrange within the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution as a counterweight to the rustic’s army. A parallel safety power that experiences at once to Iran’s best chief, it has performed a central position in increasing the rustic’s affect around the patch, serving to information a community of allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen — described by means of Tehran because the “axis of resistance.”
By way of running thru proxies, analysts say, the IRGC is in a position to project Iranian power month preserving a strategic distance from the battle. However as its allies have ramped up their assaults in accordance with the battle in Gaza — with Yemen’s Houthis firing on commercial ships within the Purple Sea; Hezbollah engaging in near-daily exchanges of fireplace with Israel in southern Lebanon; and Iraqi and Syrian militants targeting U.S. army bases — the danger of a much broader warfare has grown.
Suspected strikes by means of Israel early Friday close to town of Aleppo killed dozens of Syrian infantrymen and a number of other contributors of Hezbollah, in line with a spokesperson for the militant staff and Syria’s atmosphere information company. In overdue December, an Israeli hit outdoor Damascus took out an IRGC “senior adviser,” Iranian atmosphere media reported; some other member of the IRGC, reportedly in control of facilitating Iranian oil shipments to Syria, used to be killed in a hit alongside Syria’s Mediterranean coast in early March.
Ershadi, the U.N. ambassador, hinted darkly that Monday’s hit may just “exacerbate tensions in the region and potentially ignite more conflict involving other nations.”
The assault used to be impulsively condemned by means of Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, which signed a normalization promise with Israel in 2020.
Regional officers told The Washington Submit in February that Iran had privately recommended Hezbollah and alternative armed teams to workout restraint towards U.S. forces, now not in need of to impress a bigger battle. Analysts concern Monday’s assault may just trade Tehran’s calculations.
“We are in a very dangerous situation now,” Azizi stated. Iran has “a shiny axis of resistance with fighters around the region, but if they can’t respond to Israel killing commanders one after another, they clearly don’t have deterrence.”
Cate Brown contributed to this file.
