Top Iranian military commanders were among the seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials killed in an airstrike on the country\u2019s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, according to Iranian officials and state-affiliated media, which blamed Israel for the attack. <\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry said\u00a0that senior IRGC commander Mohammed Reza Zahedi was killed in the attack. Haji Rahimi was named as the second commander killed in the attack, according to the IRGC statement shared by state news agency IRNA later on Monday. <\/p>\n
The IRGC statement named five other officials who were killed: Hossein Aman Elahi, Mehdi Jalalati, Mohsen Sedaghat, Ali Aghababaee, and Ali Salehi Roozbahani. <\/p>\n
People gathered around the flattened building in Syria\u2019s capital, according to photographs of the scene. Footage of the aftermath of the blast, published by Iranian state media Press TV, showed extensive damage, fire and smoke at the scene. <\/p>\n
Speaking on camera to reporters in Damascus, Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari alleged that the consulate building, located next to the Iranian embassy, \u201cwas targeted with six missiles from Israeli F-35 warplanes.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a separate interview, Akbari added that two Syrian policemen were also among the injured in the attack, which he said \u201cis perhaps the first time that the Zionist regime allows itself to attack an official building of the Islamic Republic of Iran embassy, which had the flag of the Islamic Republic raised on top of it.\u201d <\/p>\n
When asked if Israel was involved in the attack, Hagari said, \u201cI\u2019m not going to comment on that strike but I want to tell you that in the last six months, Iran is making this region escalate. She\u2019s the main actor.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201c[Iran] is the main actor that makes atrocities in this region using the proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,\u201d Hagari said. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven this morning, an Iranian UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] has hit an Israeli base in Eilat,\u201d Hagari claimed. \u201cIran is an actor that brings escalation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Four unnamed Israeli officials acknowledged that Israel carried out the attack in Damascus, the New York Times reported. <\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, warned of possible \u201creciprocal measures,\u201d following the incident. <\/p>\n
\u201cIran preserves the right to take reciprocal measures and will decide the type of response and punishment against the aggressor,\u201d Kanaani said, according to IRGC-affiliated Fars News. <\/p>\n
The foreign ministers of Iran and Syria also accused Israel of authoring the attack, with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian calling it a \u201cviolation of all international obligations and conventions\u201d and demanding a \u201cserious response\u201d from the international community. <\/p>\n
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad described the strike as a \u201cgross violation of international regulations, especially the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,\u201d according to a readout of his call with Amir-Abdollahian. <\/p>\n
Zahedi, the slain commander, was previously the commander of IRGC\u2019s ground forces, the commander of IRGC\u2019s air force, and the deputy commander of the IRGC\u2019s operations. <\/p>\n
Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group issued a statement on Tuesday local time, accusing Israel of the strike, and warned that Israel would pay, vowing revenge. <\/p>\n
United States State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US did not \u201chave confirmation either of the target or the responsible party\u201d at a briefing on Monday. <\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we have gathered information about what exactly this was, I don\u2019t want to speak to it specifically,\u201d Miller added. \u201cBut of course, we\u2019re always concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Russian Foreign Ministry \u201cstrongly condemned\u201d\u00a0the attack in a statement published on its website on Monday, saying \u201cany attacks on diplomatic and consular facilities to be categorically unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n
It also called on \u201cthe Israeli leadership to abandon the practice of provocative military actions in Syria and other neighboring countries, which can lead to the extremely dangerous consequences throughout the region.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated. <\/p>\n\n
Top Iranian military commanders were among the seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials killed in an airstrike on the country\u2019s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, according to Iranian officials and state-affiliated media, which blamed Israel for the attack. Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry said\u00a0that senior IRGC commander Mohammed Reza Zahedi was killed in the attack. Haji <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}