Israeli airstrike on Syrian capital kills at least 5 Iranian advisors, officials say
LA TimesEmergency services work at a building hit by an airstrike in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday. An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state media reported. The Syrian army said the building in the tightly guarded western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh was destroyed, adding that the Israeli air force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Telegram channel for Iranian state TV reported that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the Israeli attack on Damascus, adding that “the Islamic Republic will not leave the crimes of the Zionist regime unanswered.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani condemned the Israeli strike in a statement saying that “without any doubt, the blood of these high-ranking martyrs will not be wasted.” Iran also tried again to link Israel to the Islamic State group, something its leaders have been trying to do since a suicide bombing by the extremists in early January in Iran killed more than 90 people. Last month, an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Damascus killed Iranian general Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime advisor for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Syria.