Iranian Guards commander killed in Israeli strike on consulate in Damascus

Israeli warplanes struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, and a Lebanese security source told Reuters a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, had been killed in the attack.

Reuters reporters at the scene in the Mezzeh district of the Syrian capital saw smoke rising from rubble of a building that had been flattened, and emergency vehicles parked outside.

An Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”

Syrian state television confirmed the consulate building had been attacked.

Syria’s official news agency SANA said “The Israeli attack targeted the Iranian consulate building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus”.

⚡️The building that was targeted in the Israeli attack on Syria’s capital is the annex of the Iranian consulate and the home of the Iranian ambassador pic.twitter.com/9vKHFwWCgN

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 1, 2024

Iranian media also reported that the strikes in Damascus completely destroyed the annex building, and that the ambassador was unharmed.

“Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not harmed in the Israeli attack,” Iran’s Nour news agency said.

Two AFP correspondents at the site confirmed the building next to the embassy, had been razed to the ground by the strike.

Britain-based group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy… in Damascus, killing six people”.

Syria’s official SANA news agency earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.

The incident came days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, said the monitor.