Syed Raj Mousavi was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
An Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus has killed a senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported.
Syed Raji Mousavi, one of the top commanders of the Syrian Revolutionary Guards, was killed on Monday.
He was responsible for coordinating the Syrian-Iranian military alliance, an important part of Iran’s regional network of allies and proxies known as the “Axis of Resistance.”
Mousavi was “killed a few hours ago in a Zionist regime attack in the Zeinabiya district on the outskirts of Damascus,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported, using another name, Sayyida Zeinab, in the south of the Syrian capital.
“The usurper and barbaric Zionist regime will pay for this crime,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement read on state television.
Iranian state television interrupted its regular news broadcast to announce that Mousavi, who it said was one of Syria’s most experienced Revolutionary Guard advisers, had been killed.
The attack comes amid concerns that the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip could escalate into a broader regional conflict, involving Iranian-backed groups such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. I was disappointed.
“Mousavi is one of the oldest Revolutionary Guards commanders in Syria and Lebanon, having been active in the region since the 1980s,” Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem reported from southern Lebanon.
“According to our sources, Mousavi had been the target of several assassination attempts by Israel. However, at this point the assassination was successful. Hashem has accused Iran of being a central figure in an arms-smuggling network that extends to Hezbollah, and of being a highly influential figure in what Iran calls the Axis of Resistance. .
Mousavi was “one of those who accompanied Qasem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020,” IRNA reported. Mr. Soleimani played a central role in coordinating Iran’s regional activities.
Iranian media reported that President Ebrahim Raisi said the attack was “an expression of the Zionist regime’s dissatisfaction and weakness in the region, for which it will definitely pay the price.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, but Barak Rabid, a reporter for the American news site Axios, cited unnamed Israeli officials as saying Israel was preparing for retaliation, which could include rocket fire from Syria and Lebanon. He said that he is proceeding with the
The United States and Israel have carried out attacks on alleged Iranian-linked targets in Syria for years, but Iran’s support for President Bashar al-Assad in the 2011 war that erupted in Syria Since then, Iran’s influence has increased.
Earlier this month, Iran announced that two members of the Revolutionary Guards, who were serving as military advisers in Syria, were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
