TEHRAN — An improvised bomb has killed an Iranian colonel
from the aerospace division of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near
Syria’s capital Damascus, Iranian media reported Wednesday, blaming arch foe
Israel.
اضافة اعلان
“Col. Davoud Jafari, one of Iran’s military advisers
in Syria and a member of the Guards’ aerospace arm, was killed with a makeshift
bomb planted by the roadside,” the Tasnim news agency reported citing a Guards
statement.
The IRGC’s aerospace department manufactures drones,
missiles, and satellites.
Tasnim said Jafari was killed on Monday “by
associates of the Zionist regime” — its term for Israel, a country that waged a
shadow war of attacks, assassinations, and acts of sabotage against Iran for
years.
It vowed that “undoubtedly, the criminal Zionist
regime will receive the adequate response for this crime”.
Syrian authorities had not yet confirmed the killing
of Jafari.
Britain-based war monitoring group the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources in the county, reported
Jafari was killed with his Syrian bodyguard when the bomb blast hit their
vehicle.
The attack took place near Sayyida Zeinab, a south
Damascus district that hosts a shrine revered by Shiite Muslims and is home to
many Iranians.
Jafari was the highest-ranking Guards officer killed
in Syria since August 23, when Tehran announced the “martyrdom death” of Gen.
Abolfazl Alijani, a Guards ground forces commander who was on a mission in
Syria.
Alijani was hailed as a “defender of the sanctuary”,
a term used for those who work on behalf of Iran in Syria or Iraq.
Iran has long backed Syrian President
Bashar Al-Assad’s government in the country’s grinding civil war. Assad is also
supported by the military wing of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and by
Russian forces.
Iran says it has no troops in Syria but IRGC
military “advisers”.
Israel has reportedly carried out multiple strikes
in Syria in recent months.
They include one that killed five government troops
in Damascus, and two that caused significant damage to the airport in the
second city of Aleppo.
In March, the Guards announced the deaths of two
high-ranking officers killed in an Israeli attack in Syria, threatening to
retaliate to avenge them.
On November 9, an unclaimed raid targeted a pro-Iranian
militia convoy carrying weapons and fuel from Iraq into Syria, killing at least
14 people according to the observatory.
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