Iran vows to retaliate for Israel’s killing of IRGC military advisers in Syria

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN, Iran (AA) – Iran has vowed to retaliate against the killing of its military advisers in an Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Addressing a weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the “crimes” of Israel against Iran have “never gone without answer.”

Five Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) military advisers were killed in an Israeli attack on a four-story building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus earlier this week. The strike came weeks after a similar attack killed senior IRGC commander Sayed Razi Mousavi in the suburbs of Damascus.

The five slain IRGC officers were laid to rest in Tehran on Monday after a mass funeral.

Kanaani said Tehran “reserves the right” to respond “in own way,” while blaming arch-foe Israel for the “criminal act” and “violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

On Saturday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed that the killings of the five advisers “will not go unanswered.”

Tension has escalated between Iran and Israel amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip as well as regional developments, including attacks on Israel-bound ships in the Red Sea by Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have also deteriorated further amid a string of attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria in recent months by groups linked to Iran.