Iran’s Revolutionary Guard accused Israel this Friday of the death of one of its officers in a bombardment in Syria and promised a “strong response”. The “military adviser Milad Heidari died this Friday on the outskirts of Damascus” in a “criminal air attack” by the “Zionist regime”, reported the Revolutionary Guard in a statement collected by Iranian media.
“The criminal and false Zionist regime will undoubtedly receive a strong response for this crime,” the elite military corps added. The death of the Iranian “military adviser” came amid an escalation in the past week in clashes between the US and pro-Iranian militias in Syria. In addition, Israel has bombarded the outskirts of Damascus with missiles in the last two days, according to the Syrian government.
A high ranking officer
“Milad Heidari, one of the officers and military advisers of the Guardians in Syria, fell a martyr at dawn this Friday, in the criminal attack of the Zionist regime against the suburbs of Damascus,” Iran’s Sepah News agency said.
“Without a doubt, the Zionist regime will receive a response for this crime,” the Guardians agency warned on its site, denouncing “the silence of international assemblies” in the face of Israeli “aggressions” in Syria. Syria’s main regional ally, Iran has supported Bashar al-Assad’s regime since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, including through the deployment of military advisers on the ground.
The Jewish state frequently attacks targets in neighboring Syria, where it considers the presence of Lebanese and Iranian armed groups allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a threat to its security. The Iranian military presence is of particular concern to the US and to Israel, which has bombed Iranian targets in the Arab country on several occasions.
an underground war
At the same time, Iran and Israel are waging a covert war that includes cyber attacks, alleged assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage of ships, though neither country often publicly acknowledges their actions. Israel considers the Islamic Republic its main enemy and has been attacking Iranian military positions or allied militias in Syria for years.
Syria also accused Israel this Friday of carrying out a missile attack on the outskirts of Damascus for the second consecutive day, after the previous morning, at least two soldiers from the Arab country were injured in the same region, the official news agency reported. HEALTHY SYRIA. “The Israeli enemy carried out an aggression with barrages of missiles fired from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, against a position in Rif Damascus province,” an unnamed military source told SANA.
The danger of an escalation
Syrian air defenses managed to intercept part of the projectiles, which were launched after midnight and whose impact caused material damage, according to the source. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based NGO with a wide network of partners on the ground, said the action targeted positions of Syrian government forces and pro-Iranian militias supporting them, including a warehouse. of weapons. According to a statement from the organization, Israel intensified its air and ground attacks against Syrian territory this month, when there were at least six different actions and a dozen casualties, including four militiamen from groups supported by Tehran.
This Friday’s attack is the second in just 24 hours, after two Syrian soldiers were injured in another missile launch on the outskirts of the capital early Thursday.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry denounced in a statement that “the region cannot enjoy peace and stability if the Israeli occupation and its repeated attacks are not ended, and without Israel being held accountable for the crimes it has committed.”
The spokesman for Iranian diplomacy, Nasser Kanani, condemned on Friday “the attacks of the Zionist regime against some centers located in Damascus and its suburbs.”