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Israeli Airstrike on Damascus Takes Out
[NewsMax] An Israeli missile strike on Syria's capital Damascus on Saturday killed four members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, including the head of the force's information unit, a security source in the regional pro-Syria alliance told Reuters.In Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards named four military advisers who were killed in the Israeli strike, but did not give their rank, and said further details would be announced later. Iranian state television said the targeted building was the residence of Iranian advisers in the Syrian capital. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has long pursued a bombing campaign against Iran's military and security presence 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 reported an Israeli "aerial attack" on a building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus and said Syrian air defenses had shot down a number of missiles. 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 al-Assad's government, and that it was completely 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. A Reuters witness in Mazzeh saw 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.
The guard later issued statements identifying the five dead as Hojjatollah Omidvar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi, Saeed Karimi and Mohammad Amin Samadi. It gave no ranks for them. The difference in information could not be immediately reconciled. Posted by: Frank G 2024-01-20 |
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