After the killing of a general in Syria in an Israeli airstrike, Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani has threatened retaliation. “At the right time, in the right place, we will give a strong response to the weak Zionist enemy (Israel, note),” he said on Wednesday.
On Monday, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), was killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus. The officer was not present in public, as is customary for IRGC activities in Syria.
Reportedly monitored arms shipments to Hezbollah
According to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, Mousavi was a confidant of powerful IRGC General Ghassem Soleimani, whom the US killed in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020. According to the New York Times, Mousavi is believed to have helped oversee the delivery of missiles and other weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
The online portal “Amwaj” reported that Mousavi had decades of military experience in Syria and Lebanon. Although little was known about the general, he was considered abroad as one of the Revolutionary Guards’ most influential officers.
Important ally of Assad
Israel regularly attacks targets in Syria to prevent its arch-enemy Iran from expanding its military influence there through militias. Iran, together with Russia, is the most important ally of the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad.
For Iran, Syria, together with the Shia organization Hezbollah in Lebanon, is part of the so-called axis of resistance in the fight against Israel. However, according to the government in Tehran, Iranian soldiers only act as advisors and are not directly involved in the conflict.
Source: Krone
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