In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, the UAE condemned the targeting of the Iranian diplomatic mission in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing a senior Iranian military adviser and several others, Syrian officials and state media said Monday.
The strike appears to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of Iranian military officials and their allies in Syria, which have intensified since Hamas militants. Israel, which rarely acknowledges such strikes, said it had no comment.
The attack killed Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016, according to the Iranian Arabic-language state television channel Al-Alam and pan-Arab television station Al-Mayadeen, which has reporters in Syria.
Iranian Ambassador Hossein Akbari condemned Israel and said as many as seven people were killed. First responders were still searching for bodies under the rubble. Akbari said two police officers who guard the building were wounded.
He vowed revenge for the strike “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Charles Lister, director of the Syria program of the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank, called the strike a “major escalation.” The attack is sure to draw retaliation, he wrote on the social media platform X.
Syria’s foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, said “several” people were killed, and a phone call with his counterpart in Iran, he condemned Israel.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Nasser Kanaani, called on the global community to condemn the strike. Iranian state television said the Iranian ambassador’s residence was inside the consular building, which stood next to the embassy. The main embassy remained intact.
State news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, said the building in the tightly guarded neighborhood of Mazzeh was leveled.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years.