exchange of fire
Saturday’s alleged Israeli strike was the second high-profile targeted killing in Syria in less than a month.
In December, a senior Iranian general was killed in an airstrike in Syria.
Razi Mousavi was the most senior commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of the Guards, to be killed outside Iran since IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
On January 2 in neighboring Lebanon, where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah has influence, Hamas deputy Saleh al-Aruri was killed in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
A few days later, Israel killed top Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil in south Lebanon by attacking his car.
There have been regular cross-border firings between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon since the start of the Israel–Hamas war.
Saturday’s raid on Damascus came four days after the Revolutionary Guard said it had attacked “Israeli intelligence headquarters” in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern autonomous province of Kurdistan.
Iraqi officials said the attack killed four civilians and wounded six others.
Israel rarely comments on individual attacks targeting Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which supports the government of President Bashar al-Assad, to expand its presence there.
Since 2011, Syria has endured a bloody conflict that has left more than half a million people dead and several million displaced.
