Photo: Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi was the leader of the IRGC’s Quds Force for Lebanon and Syria
Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was among at least five people killed in the attack, Iranian media reported on Monday.
Several people have been killed in an Israeli air strike that flattened the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, according to Iranian state media and Syrian authorities.
Emergency and security personnel gather at the site of strikes that hit a building next to the Iranian embassy in Syria’s capital Damascus [Maher Al Mounes/AFP]
Reporters at the scene in Damascus’s Mezzeh district, where the consulate is located, saw smoke rising from rubble, and emergency vehicles parked outside.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad denounced the “terrorist attack”.
“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack that targeted the Iranian consulate building in Damascus killing a number of innocent people,” Mekdad said in a statement cited by Syrian state news agency SANA.
When asked about the attack, an Israeli military spokesperson told journalists: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”
Iran’s Ambassador Hossein Akbari who was not injured, said at least five people had been killed in the attack and that Tehran’s response would be “harsh”.
Since the Palestinian group Hamas led an attack on Israel on October 7, Israel has ramped up air strikes in Syria against Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia and Iran’s IRGC, both of which support the government of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
This blast in Damascus comes just days after Israeli air strikes killed dozens of people in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.
Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, says Israel’s alleged attack on Iran’s consulate in Syria is “akin to targeting another country on its own soil”.
“Overall this seems to still be a low-simmer regional war. It’s not yet an all-out regional conflict, but it does appear that Israel is trying to do everything in its power to expand the conflict,” Vaez told Al Jazeera.
“[This] puts Israel in a win-win situation because Israel knows Iran doesn’t want to get dragged into a regional war, so if it escalates its attacks against Iranian assets and personnel in Syria, it probably will be cost free, and if Iran does respond and retaliate, then it becomes a justified pretext for expanding the war.”
Who is General Mohammad Reza Zahedi
He was an Iranian senior military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He previously commanded its Air Force and Ground Force and was one of the top commanders of the Quds Force at the time of his death.
According to Lebanese media Zahedi is Hassan Nasrallah’s former boss . Nasrallah is the leader of the Iranian backed Hezbollah , which is part of the Quds force .
Zahedi joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1979 and served as a mid-level officer during the Iran-Iraq War. He led the 44th Qamar Beni Hashem Division from 1983 to 1986 and later headed the 14th Imam Hossein Division in the IRGC from 1986 until 1991. Between 2005 and 2008, Zahedi held the position of commander of the IRGC ground forces. Concurrently, he assumed leadership of the Thar-Allah base, responsible for the security of the Iranian capital, Tehran. From 2008 to 2017, Zahedi served as the head of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Zahedi was killed by a airstrike that targeted the consulate annex building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus
Al Jazeera/ Ya Libnan / News Agencies
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