Iran vows revenge for Israeli assassination of IRGC advisers in Syria
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has strongly condemned the assassination of five Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) advisers in an Israeli missile strike in Syria, saying such “cowardly” acts will not go unanswered.
“Certainly, the continuation of such terrorist and criminal acts, which are indicative of the increasing failure and defeats of the illegitimate Zionist regime in achieving its malicious goals and the depth of its frustration with the fighters of the resistance front, will not go unanswered by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Raisi said in a statement on Saturday, Press TV reported.
The IRGC said earlier in the day that four of its members serving on a military advisory mission in Syria were assassinated in an Israeli strike on a residential building in Damascus. It said later than a fifth adviser had succumbed to his injuries.
“The recent crimes of the usurping Zionist regime, which…. are committed under the shadow of the support of hegemonic countries, chief among them the United States, and the silence of international organizations will undoubtedly be another stain on the black record of all self-proclaimed human rights advocates,” the president said.
He also offered his condolences to the families of the martyrs, the Iranian leadership, and the entire nation.
Iran maintains an advisory mission in Syria at the request of Damascus to help the war-torn Arab country fight off foreign-backed militants who have been fighting the democratically-elected Syrian government since 2011.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iranian military advisers will continue their anti-terror mission in the region in defiance of Israel’s “cowardly” assassination operations.
“Undoubtedly, the Zionists’ defeat against the will of the people of Gaza cannot be compensated by such cowardly terrorist acts,” Amir-Abdollahian said in an X post on Saturday.
Also, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani strongly condemned the “murderous and aggressive” Israeli attack, adding that the repeated violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and the escalation of aggressive and provocative attacks on various targets in the Arab country by the criminal and child-killing Zionist regime shows the helplessness of Tel Aviv on the battlefield against resistance forces in Gaza and the West Bank in the past hundred days, and a desperate attempt by the regime to spread instability and insecurity across the region.
The Israeli regime has ramped up its airstrikes on Syria since early October, when it launched the ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.