By KAREEM CHEHAYEB and ALBERT AJI (Associated Press)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An Israeli airstrike devastated the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Syria, resulting in the death of a senior Iranian military adviser and several others, as stated by Syrian officials and state media on Monday.
The attack signifies a step up in Israel’s targeting of Iranian military officials and their allies in Syria, which have increased since Hamas militants — supported by Iran — attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
Israel, which seldom admits to such strikes, said it had no comment.
The strike led to the death of Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to the Iranian Arabic-language state television channel Al-Alam and pan-Arab television station Al-Mayadeen, which has reporters in Syria.
Iranian Ambassador Hossein Akbari condemned Israel and said as many as seven people were killed. First responders were still searching for bodies under the rubble. Akbari said two police officers who guard the building were wounded.
He vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Charles Lister, director of the Syria program of the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank, labeled the strike a “major escalation.” The attack is sure to draw retaliation, he wrote on the social media platform X.
Syria’s foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, said “several” people were killed, and a phone call with his counterpart in Iran, he condemned Israel.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Nasser Kanaani, called on the global community to condemn the strike. Iranian state television said the Iranian ambassador’s residence was inside the consular building, which stood next to the embassy. The main embassy remained intact.
State news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, said the building in the tightly guarded neighborhood of Mazzeh was leveled.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years.
Such airstrikes have escalated in recent months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ongoing clashes between Israel’s military and Hezbollah on the Lebanon-Israel border.
Though it seldom admits its actions in Syria, Israel has stated its aim is to target bases of Iran-allied militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
An Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood in December killed a long-serving adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, Seyed Razi Mousavi. A similar strike on a building in Damascus in January killed at least five Iranian advisers. Last week, airstrikes over the strategic eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour near the Iraqi border killed an Iranian adviser.
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