Iran vows revenge as Israel strike in Syria kills 5 Revolutionary Guards, ‘including intelligence chief’
- An unspecified number of Syrian troops also died in the missile attack, which flattened a building in Damascus
- Ambulances and fire trucks gathered around the site of the strike, with rescuers searching for people stuck under the rubble
Tehran vowed to carry out revenge attacks against Israel on Saturday after a missile strike flattened a building used as a base of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, killing five Guards and an unspecified number of Syrian troops.
Ambulances and fire trucks gathered around the site of the strike, which had been cordoned off. Rescue operations for people stuck under the rubble continued through the day. A crane was in place to hoist concrete slabs off the wreckage.
A security source in a network of groups close to Syria’s government and its ally Iran said the multistorey building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s government. It was completely flattened by “precision-targeted Israeli missiles”, the source said.
The Guards said an unspecified number of members of the Syrian military were killed, along with the five Iranians, whom it identified without giving their ranks. Iran’s Mehr news agency said “the Revolutionary Guards’ Syria intel chief” and his deputy were among those “martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel”, quoting an informed source.
There was no comment from Israel, which has long pursued a bombing campaign against Iran’s military and security presence in Syria but typically does not discuss such attacks publicly.
It has killed Iranian Guards in several such strikes in a stepped-up campaign in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel by militants of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza.
