Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus Monday, Syrian and Iranian officials said, with a top Revolutionary Guard commander among seven members the force said were killed, amid worsening regional tensions.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps named Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and another high-ranking officer, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, as among seven of its members killed.
Britain-based war monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annexe to the Iranian embassy”.
The toll includes “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters, none of them civilians,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory with a network of sources in Syria, told AFP.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, giving a lower toll, told Iranian state TV that “at least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.
