An Israeli missile attack on Damascus, the Syrian capital, yesterday killed five members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, including the deputy director of intelligence in Syria for its elite force, the Qods force. His name, Sadegh Omidzadeh, was cited by Nour News, considered a media outlet close to the Islamic Republic’s intelligence apparatus, along with that of his lieutenant, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Gholam.
The Revolutionary Guard, however, provided five different names, which were cited by other Iranian agencies. Iranian state television said the building attacked was the residence of Iranian advisers in the Syrian capital. The Iranian presence in Syria became noticeable over the course of the war that began in March 2011, and has been capital for the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
On the Israeli side, and as usual, there were no comments regarding the attack nor was its authorship assumed. Israel has long carried out a bombing campaign against Iran’s military and security presence in Syria, but in particular against Hezbollah, an ally of Tehran and also present in Syria. Attacks against the transit and storage of weapons have been routine for years, given the impotence of Damascus to respond to the violation of its territory.
Since the Hamas attack on October 7, however, the Israeli incursions have been increasingly deadly and – in the first days – included several bombings by Israeli aircraft on the international airports of Damascus and Aleppo to disable the runways. In December, an airstrike killed two members of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria, and on December 25, a third and much more important one, General Razi Mousavi, who was until then the head of the Qods force in Syria.
These and other casualties in the powerful Iranian military structure would have provoked the missile attack that on January 16 killed the Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayi in Irbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, right in front of the United States consulate. Tehran claimed that Dizayi “was actually a cover for the Israeli Mossad.”
Iran condemned yesterday’s attack as a “desperate attempt to spread instability in the region,” state media reported, announcing that “Iran (…) reserves its right to respond to the organized terrorism of the false Zionist regime at the time.” and appropriate place,” according to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
Syrian state media reported an Israeli “airstrike” on a building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus and said Syrian air defenses had shot down several missiles. A Syrian security source told Reuters that the multi-story building was in fact used by Iranian advisers and was devastated by “precisely targeted Israeli missiles.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said several members of the Syrian Armed Forces also died. Rescue operations for people trapped under the rubble continued throughout the day.
In the same vein of selective Israeli attacks, just yesterday four members of Hizbullah – one of them, a local commander – were killed, apparently by a drone, while driving near Tyre, in southern Lebanon. At the same time, “Israeli warplanes attacked terrorist infrastructure, an observation post and a launch site belonging to the terrorist organization Hizbullah, in the Al Adisa area of ??southern Lebanon,” according to an Israeli spokesperson.