DAMASCUS: An Israeli missile strike on Syria’s capital Damascus on Saturday killed four members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, including the head of the force’s information unit in Syria, a security source in the regional pro-Syria alliance told Reuters.
In a statement carried on Iranian state television, the Revolutionary Guards confirmed that four of its military advisers were killed in the Israeli strike and said further details would be announced later. State TV said the targeted building was the residence of Iranian advisers in Damascus.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has long pursued a bombing campaign against Iran-linked targets in Syria. It has shifted to deadlier strikes in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by militants of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza.
Syrian state media said a building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus was targeted in a likely Israeli attack, without giving further details. Other local media in Syria said explosions were heard across the Syrian capital.
The security source, part of a network of groups close to Syria’s government and its major ally Iran, said the multi-story building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar Assad’s government, and that it was entirely flattened by “precision-targeted Israeli missiles.”
The source said a fifth person was also killed but could not immediately identify the nationality.
Essam Al-Amin, head of the Al-Mowasat Hospital in Damascus, told Reuters that his hospital had received one corpse and three wounded people, including a woman, following Saturday’s attack.
