JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In the wake of the assassination of Mohammed Reza Zahedi in the Iranian consulate in Damascus, a shocked Iran has vowed revenge on Israel, which it has deemed responsible for the attack.
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Monday’s strike levelled a five-storey building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing at least 13 people including Zahedi, according to Iranian officials.
Zahedi, 63, had held a succession of commands in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, over a career spanning more than four decades. His deputy, General Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi, was also killed.
Zahedi was said to be the highest-ranking Iranian military officer to be killed since the U.S. assassinated General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.
Iran’s Ambassador to Syria Hossen Akbari condemned Israel for striking a diplomatic building. Akbari said that “We told you before: The Zionist entity knows very well that such crimes and any kind of crimes will not remain without response.”
The Iranians believed that a diplomatic consulate was a safe place and protected under international law but Israel has claimed that the meeting between Iranian senior officials and Islamic Jihad elements was designed to foment further terrorist attacks and had no diplomatic immunity.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a stern message Tuesday on his official website, claiming the Islamic Republic will seek retribution.
‘The evil Zionist regime will be punished at the hands of our brave men. We will make them regret this crime and the other ones,’ Khamenei said.
Signs in Tehran targeting heads of Israeli defense establishment
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also condemned the attack as a ‘clear violation of international regulations’ which ‘will not go unanswered’.
‘After repeated defeats and failures against the faith and will of the Resistance Front fighters, the Zionist regime has put blind assassinations on its agenda in the struggle to save itself,’ Raisi said on his office’s website.
Signs in Tehran showed leaders of the Israeli defense establishment with the words “we take revenge” written both in English and Hebrew.
