‘An Israeli airstrike on Syrian capital killed at least five Iranian advisers’

Damascus: An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state media reported.

The Syrian army said the building in the tightly guarded western Damascus neighbourhood of Mazzeh was entirely destroyed, adding that the Israeli air force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israeli military did not comment.

A few hours later, an Israeli drone strike on a car near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two Hezbollah members who were in the vehicle and two people who were in a nearby orchard, an official with the group and Lebanon’s state news agency said. One of those killed was Ali Hudruj, a local Hezbollah commander, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, without giving further details.

Nour News, which is believed to be close to Iran’s intelligence apparatus, identified two of the dead in Damascus as Gen. Sadegh Omidzadeh, the intelligence deputy of the guard’s expeditionary Quds Force in Syria, and his deputy, who goes by the nom de guerre Hajj Gholam. The guard later issued statements identifying the five dead as Hojjatollah Omidvar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi, Saeed Karimi and Mohammad Amin Samadi. It gave no ranks for them. The difference in information could not be immediately reconciled.

An opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least six people five Iranians and a Syrian were killed in the missile attack that struck while officials from Iran-backed groups were holding a meeting. The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said three of the Iranians were commanders, adding that four other people are still missing under the rubble.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani condemned the Israeli strike in a statement saying that “without any doubt, the blood of these high-ranking martyrs will not be wasted.” He added that Tehran “reserves its right to respond to the organized terrorism of the fake Zionist regime at the appropriate time and place.”

Iran also tried again to link Israel to the Islamic State group, something its leaders have been trying to do since a suicide bombing by the extremists in early January in Iran killed more than 90 people. Security forces deployed around the destroyed four-story building as ambulances and fire engines were seen in the area. A search for people trapped under the rubble was underway. Windows were also shattered in nearby buildings.

A grocer near the scene of the strike said he heard five consecutive explosions at about 10:15 am, adding that he later witnessed the bodies of a man and a woman being taken away as well as three wounded people. “The shop shook.I stayed inside for a few seconds then went out and saw smoke billowing from behind the mosque,” the man, who asked that his name not be used for security reasons, told The Associated Press.