BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike Monday in a Damascus neighborhood killed a high-ranking Iranian basic, Iranian state media mentioned.
Iranian officers and allied militant teams within the area vowed revenge for the killing however didn’t instantly launch any retaliatory strike.
The killing of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, comes amid ongoing fears of the Israel-Hamas battle sparking a regional spillover. Iran-backed teams in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have launched assaults on Israel and its allies in assist of Hamas.
Clashes alongside the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel have continued to accentuate, with day by day exchanges of missiles, airstrikes and shelling throughout the frontier.
In the Red Sea, assaults by Houthi rebels in Yemen towards ships they consider to be related to Israel have disrupted commerce and prompted the launch of a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to guard transport routes.
Iran-backed militias in Iraq working below an umbrella group dubbed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have additionally launched greater than 100 assaults on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, which they’ve mentioned are in retaliation for Washington’s assist of Israel.
The group claimed an assault on a U.S. base subsequent to the business airport in Irbil in northern Iraq on Monday. A U.S. army official, talking on situation of anonymity in accordance with rules, confirmed the assault and mentioned it had triggered accidents however didn’t present additional particulars.
Israeli strikes killed two different generals earlier this month in Syria.
Israel on Monday struck the Sayida Zeinab neighborhood, positioned close to a Shiite Muslim shrine, Iran’s official information company IRNA and Britain-based opposition battle monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned. IRNA described Mousavi as a detailed companion of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the top of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
Neither the Israeli army nor Syrian state media instantly issued an announcement about Monday’s assault. Israeli officers declined to remark.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in an announcement mentioned that Mousavi was “martyred while serving as an adviser for the resistance front, defending holy shrines in Syria as well as safeguarding Islamic ideals.” He threatened that the “Israeli regime will definitely pay for this crime.”
Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, condemned the killing, saying that Mousavi was in Syria as a “formal military advisor.”
“(Israel) will definitely get a response to this crime at the right time and the right situation,” Akbari mentioned, talking from Damascus.
Though IRNA didn’t present different particulars in regards to the assault, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned the Israeli army focused Mousavi after he entered a farm within the space, which allegedly was certainly one of a number of places of work for Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group, alongside Iran and Russia, has performed a key army function in retaining President Bashar Assad’s authorities in energy all through the Syrian battle.
Hezbollah in an announcement known as Mousavi “one of the best of brothers who worked to support the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon for decades of his honorable life.”
Israel has carried out lots of of strikes on targets inside government-controlled components of war-torn Syria lately. It doesn’t often acknowledge its airstrikes on Syria. But when it does, Israel says it’s focusing on Iran-backed teams there which have backed Assad’s authorities.
