The Iranian Revolutionary Guard confirmed the killing of one of its top advisors in Syria, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, during an Israeli air strike on the Sayyida Zeinab area in the Damascus countryside.
Three Israeli missiles hit the building where he was staying, killing him instantly.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says Israel “will certainly pay” for the killing in Syria of the senior general with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Sayyed Razi Mousavi held the rank of major general and was in charge of a “resistance support unit” in Syria, Iran said. He was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran, an important part of Iran’s regional network of allies and proxies known as the “Axis of Resistance.”
Reports from IRNA said that Mousavi was “among those accompanying Qassem Soleimani,” the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a United States drone attack in Iraq in 2020. Soleimani had played a central role in the coordination of Iran’s regional activities.
“Without a doubt, this action is another sign of frustration, helplessness and incapacity of the usurping Zionist regime [Israel] in the region,” Raisi said in a statement.
The IRGC said that the “usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime.”
Barak Ravid, a reporter for the US news site Axios, quotes an unnamed Israeli official as saying that the Iran’s retaliation could include rocket fire from Syria and Lebanon.
