Senior Iranian commander dies in airstrikes in Damascus, say media in Iran
GEN. ALI REZA ZAHDI, 65, OVERSAW IRAN’S COVERT MILITARY OPERATIONS IN SYRIA AND LEBANON, IRANIAN OFFICIALS SAID.
Israeli airstrikes destroyed a building belonging to the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing a senior commander in the Quds Force, the external military and intelligence service of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian state media reported Monday.
Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, 65, oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in
Syria and Lebanon, Iranian officials said. He is among the senior-most Iranian commanders believed to have been killed by Israel in a yearslong shadow war that has included assassinations of Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists in Iran and Syria.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes, but four Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, acknowledged that Israel had carried out the attack, targeting Zahdi. They did not confirm that he had been killed.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian strongly condemned the attack in a statement and said he had spoken to his Syrian counterpart about the “Zionist regime’s attack on the consulate section of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Damascus.”
“Netanyahu has lost his mental balance because he has faced back to back defeat in Gaza and has not achieved the Zionists’ ambitious goals,” Amirabdollahian said in the statement, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
An Iranian member of the Revolutionary Guard said the strike targeted a secret meeting in which Iranian intelligence officials and Palestinian militants had gathered to discuss the war in the
Gaza Strip.
Among the Iranian officials were senior commanders in the Quds
Force and leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a fighting group armed and funded by Iran.
The head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziad Nakhaleh, was in Iran last week meeting with senior Iranian leaders.
Syrian and Iranian state news agencies reported that several people were killed in the strikes Monday and aired video footage of the ruined building, the remnants of burned cars, shattered glass and debris covering the ground.
Israeli officials said the building in which the meeting took place was not a diplomatic office but the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard, making it a military target without the same protections as the consulate itself. The New York Times could not independently confirm whether the building was being used by the Revolutionary Guard.
Syria’s Defense Ministry said the strikes happened around 5 p.m. when Israeli fighter jets entered Syria from the Golan Heights.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, said in a statement released to state media that the consulate’s building came under attack by two F-35 fighter jets. Akbari said among those killed were several Iranian military advisers deployed to Syria.