2024-01-20T19:54:06+00:00
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/ Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi warned on Saturday that Iran would not leave the strike that killed five Revolutionary Guard advisers in Damascus “without a response,” which he described as a “cowardly attack.”
Raisi said in a statement, “I condemn this cowardly attack, and there is no doubt that the continuation of such terrorist and criminal acts will not pass without a response from Iran.”
He considered this attack to be evidence of “the increasing failure of the illegitimate Zionist regime to achieve its evil goals, in the face of the fighters of the axis of resistance,” which is led by Iran and includes Palestinian factions, including Hamas, Iraqi and Yemeni ones, in addition to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Earlier Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement that Iran reserves the right to respond “at the appropriate time and place.”
Kanaani “strongly condemned the criminal act carried out by the Zionist entity,” which is “a desperate attempt to spread instability and insecurity in the region.”
He added, “In addition to the political, legal and international prosecution of these aggressive and criminal acts, the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to respond to the organized terrorism of the false Zionist entity at the appropriate time and place.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that the death toll among its members had risen to five, after it had previously reported the killing of four military advisors in the strike, which it accused Israel of launching.
The strike resulted in the deaths of ten people, including Iranians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It targeted the Mezzeh neighborhood in western Damascus, where several Syrian security and military headquarters are located, as well as others for Palestinian leaders, embassies, and international organizations.
The Iranian Mehr Agency, in turn, reported that the Israeli strike killed “the Revolutionary Guard intelligence official in Syria, his deputy, and two other members of the Guard.”
Kanaani continued on Saturday, “The repeated violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the escalation of aggressive and provocative attacks against various targets” in this country reflects “the inability and despair of (Israel) on the battlefield against the resistance forces in Gaza and the West Bank during the past 100 days.”
Raisi considered in his statement that “the recent crimes of the usurping Zionist entity are taking place in light of the support of the dominant countries, led by the United States, and the silence of international forums.”
Over the past years, Iran has repeatedly announced the killing of members of its forces in Syria, confirming that they are present on “advisory” missions. Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and during the ongoing conflict in his country for 13 years, it provided political, economic, and military support to Damascus.
During the past years, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, targeting mainly Iranian and Hezbollah targets, including warehouses and shipments of weapons and ammunition, but also Syrian army sites.
Israel rarely confirms the implementation of these strikes, but it reiterates that it will confront what it describes as Tehran’s attempts to establish its military presence in Syria.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Israel has repeatedly targeted Syrian territory, and the bombing has targeted Damascus and Aleppo airports several times, as well as sites belonging to Hezbollah.