- Senior general killed in air strike on embassy compound
- Tehran says Israel bears full responsibility for consequences
Iran said it would take revenge on Israel for a deadly air strike on its embassy compound in Syria — a rare direct confrontation in the adversaries’ escalating proxy conflict over the war in Gaza.
“The crime won’t remain unanswered,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The strike in Damascus late Monday killed at least seven Iranian personnel including senior military commanders and destroyed the consulate building, according to Iranian state media. Israel hasn’t confirmed the attack, in keeping with its usual response to accusations of targeting Iran.
Among the dead was Mohammadreza Zahedi, a high-ranking general linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who previously led its Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Oil advanced to near a five-month high after the attack. While Israel has struck Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, including suspected assassinations of individual personnel, Monday night’s attack would be the first time that it’s directly hit an Iranian diplomatic facility. The air strikes have increased since the outbreak in October of the war with Gaza-based Hamas, an Iran-backed group that’s designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union. In a flurry of late-night diplomatic activity, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss envoy who represents US diplomatic interests in Iran at 12:45 a.m. local time on Tuesday. An Israeli air strike on Iran’s embassy compound in Syria killed a number of people including a top military commander, Iranian and Syrian state media said. Israeli officials didn’t confirm the strike. Bloomberg’s Patrick Sykes reports.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on X that Iran sent Washington an “important message” and emphasized “the responsibility of the American government” in Monday’s attack due to its support for Israel.
Three hours later he discussed the incident by phone with his counterpart in Oman, which has previously served as a mediator between Iran and the US. The US told Iran that it wasn’t involved in the strike and didn’t know about it ahead of time, Axios reported, citing an unidentified National Security Council spokesperson. Israel hasn’t confirmed the strike, in keeping with its usual response to such accusations.
Iran’s top security body also held a late-night meeting to discuss the incident. A statement said the Supreme National Security Council took “appropriate decisions,” without elaborating.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia backed by Iran that’s launched near daily rocket attacks on northern Israel, vowed that it “won’t go without punishment and revenge against the enemy. ”Any retaliation will need to be measured against the risk of inviting a further Israeli counterstrike. In January, Iran fired missiles at what it called an Israeli spy base in northern Iraq in response to the assassination of another of its commanders in Syria.
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