The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seeking to strike a delicate balancing act between Russia and Iran, which have propped up it up during 13 years of civil war and helped it reclaim lost territory.

Syria is part of the so-called Axis of Resistance — an alliance of Iran-backed groups that has launched attacks on the Islamic republic’s arch-foe Israel or its alleged assets since October.

But its other main ally Russia maintains diplomatic ties with Israel and has pushed for stability in Syria’s south, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

“The Israelis clearly warned Assad that if Syria was used against them they would destroy his regime,” said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media.

Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 raid that levelled Tehran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling.

The attacks have also pushed Iran to reduce its military footprint throughout southern Syria, especially in areas bordering the Golan, a source close to Hezbollah and a war monitor told AFP.

– Russia and UAE influence –

“Russia and the United Arab Emirates have urged (Assad) to stay away from the conflict,” said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute.

Last year, Syria returned to the Arab fold, seeking better ties with wealthy Gulf states, in hopes they can help fund reconstruction — although Western sanctions are likely to deter investment.

In 2018, the United Arab Emirates re-established ties with Syria, and it has been leading the charge to reintegrate Damascus.

Syria appears to have heeded Russia and the UAE’s call, and its border with the Golan Heights remains relatively calm despite a handful of strikes launched by Hezbollah-allied fighters.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says that since the start of the Gaza war only 26 rocket attacks from Syria have targeted the Golan, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

Most have landed in open areas, “which is read in Washington and elsewhere as a sort of code that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants to stay out of the Gaza conflict”, Tabler said.

“Assad hopes the Arabs and the West will compensate him for his restraint, and the Russians are pushing him towards this path,” he said.

– Tricky Hamas ties –

Earlier this month, Russia’s defence ministry said it had established an additional position in the Syrian part of the Golan, to “monitor the ceasefire and promote de-escalation”.

While massive demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza took place in several Arab capitals, Damascus only saw a handful of small pro-Palestine rallies, witnesses said.

Syria has had a difficult relationship with Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7 onslaught on southern Israel triggered the war.

Hamas and Assad reconciled in 2022, a decade after the militants, long allied with Damascus, broke ties over its suppression of largely Sunni protests that triggered Syria’s civil war.

Hamas comes from the same ideological school as the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group with origins in Egypt, which Syria considers to be terrorists.

“The regime hates Hamas and has no desire to support the Muslim Brotherhood, whose victory could only strengthen their friends in Syria,” the diplomat said.

Hamas announced last year the opening of a new page with the Syrian government, but Assad felt that it was still “too early” to talk about a return to normality.

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Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said.

“Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria,” including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hezbollah said.

But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added.

Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling.

But Iran had already begun drawing down its forces after a January 20 strike that killed five Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, including their Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, the source close to Hezbollah said.

Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Iranian forces had withdrawn from Damascus and southern Syria.

Iran-backed Lebanese and Iraqi fighters had taken their place, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Iran has said repeatedly that it has no combat troops in Syria, only officers to provide military advice and training.

But the Observatory says as many as 3,000 Iranian military personnel are present in Syria, supported by tens of thousands of Iran-trained fighters from countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Abdel Rahman said that many of Iran’s advisers had left Syria over the past six months, although some remained in Aleppo province in the north and in Deir Ezzor province in the east.

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Sixty-five-year-old former Syrian brigadier general Mohammed Hamo, who lives in Sweden, stands accused of “aiding and abetting” war crimes during Syria’s civil war, which can carry a sentence of life in jail. 

The war in Syria between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and armed opposition groups, including the Islamic State, erupted after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.

It has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s economy and infrastructure. 

According to the charge sheet, Hamo contributed — through “advice and action” — to the Syrian army’s warfare, “which systematically involved indiscriminate attacks on several towns or places in the area in and around the towns of Hama and Homs”.

The charges concern the period of January 1 to July 20, 2012 and the trial is expected to last until late May.

Prosecutors say that the Syrian army’s “warfare has included widespread air and ground attacks by unknown perpetrators within the Syrian army”.

The prosecution argues that strikes were carried out without distinction — as required by international law — between civilian and military targets.

In his role as a brigadier general and head of an armament division, he allegedly helped with the coordination and supply of arms to units, enabling the carrying out of orders on an “operational level”.

Hamo’s lawyer, Mari Kilman, told AFP that her client denied committing a crime but said she did not wish to comment further ahead of the trial.

Several plaintiffs are due to testify at the trial, including Syrians from the cities in question and a British photographer who was injured during one of the strikes.

– ‘Complete impunity’ –

“The attacks in and around Homs and Hama in 2012 resulted in widespread civilian harm and an immense destruction of civilian properties,” Aida Samani, senior legal advisor at rights group Civil Rights Defenders, told AFP.

“The same conduct has been repeated systematically by the Syrian army in other cities across Syria with complete impunity,” she continued.

This trial will be the first in Europe “to address these types of indiscriminate attacks by the Syrian army”, according to Samani, who added that it “will be the first opportunity for victims of the attacks to have their voices heard in an independent court”.

Hamo is the highest-ranking military official to actually go on trial in Europe, but other European countries have also tried to bring charges against even more senior members.

In March, Swiss prosecutors charged Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of president Bashar al-Assad, with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, it remains unlikely Rifaat al-Assad — who recently returned to Syria after 37 years in exile — will show up in person for the trial, for which a date has yet to be set.

Swiss law allows for trials in absentia under certain conditions.

Last November, France issued an international arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad himself, who stands accused of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes over chemical attacks in 2013.

Three other international warrants were also issued for the arrests of Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher, the de-facto chief of the Fourth Division — an elite military unit of the Syrian army — and two generals.

In January of 2022, a German court sentenced former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan to life in jail for crimes against humanity in the first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syria, which was hailed by victims as a victory for justice.

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Tehran, a key Damascus ally, has vowed to avenge last Monday’s air strike on the Iranian embassy’s consular section that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, including two generals.

The strike came against the backdrop of Israel and Hamas’s ongoing war, which began with the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.

Damascus and Tehran blame Israel for last Monday’s raid, but it has not commented.

“America is responsible for this incident and must be held accountable,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters in Damascus.

“The fact that the US and two European countries opposed a (UN Security Council) resolution condemning the attack on the Iranian embassy is a sign that the US gave the green light to the Zionist regime (Israel)” to carry out the attack, he claimed.

Asked about Abdollahian’s remarks, deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh denied Washington was connected to the attack.

“I can very forcefully push back on that and say… the US military had no involvement in that strike that took place in Damascus,” she told journalists.

On April 2, a day after the consulate strike, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had dismissed as “nonsense” comments by Amir-Abdollahian that Washington, Israel’s main backer, bore responsibility for the attack.

– Israeli embassies warning –

On Monday, Abdollahian also inaugurated the new consular section in a Damascus building in the presence of his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad, state news agency SANA said.

He also met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

An AFP correspondent at the inauguration said the new consulate was not far from the premises destroyed by the strike in the upscale Mazzeh area, which also houses other foreign embassies and UN offices.

Iran’s foreign minister began a regional tour Sunday in Oman, long a mediator between Tehran and the West, where Muscat’s foreign minister called for de-escalation.

An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned on Sunday that Israeli embassies were “no longer safe” after the Damascus attack.

Analysts saw the raid as an escalation of Israel’s campaign against Iran and its regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said 16 people were killed in the consulate strike: eight Iranians, five Syrians, one member of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and two civilians.

Among the dead were generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, both senior commanders in the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war broke out 13 years ago, targeting Iran-backed forces including Hezbollah as well as Syrian army positions and weapons depots.

It rarely comments on individual strikes, but Israel’s raids have increased since the Gaza war began.

Tehran backs Palestinian militants Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in the group’s October 7 attack, which sparked massive Israeli retaliation in Gaza.

burs/srm

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The Guards, including two generals, were killed in the air strike on Monday which levelled the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus. 

Israel has not commented on the strike, but analysts saw it as an escalation of its campaign against Iran and its regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Friday’s ceremony coincides with the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations, when Iran and its allies stage marches in support of the Palestinians.

Quds rallies were also planned for other countries on Friday, including Syria and Lebanon.

Iran has said that among the dead were two brigadier generals from the Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi and Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

A Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Zahedi was the Quds Force commander for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

The 63-year-old had held a succession of commands in a Guards career spanning more than 40 years, and was the most important Iranian soldier killed since a United States missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed General Qassem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force.

The coffins of the seven were placed on the trailers of two trucks in one of the largest squares in Tehran, an AFP journalist said.

Mourners held Iranian and Palestinian flags, as well as those from the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group.

“Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” they chanted.

– Israel ‘will be punished’ –

The Fars news agency reported that among those present was Ziad Nakhala, leader of the Islamic Jihad group that fights alongside Hamas in Gaza.

Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami also attended the ceremony, as did President Ebrahim Raisi and his predecessor Hassan Rouhani, local media reported.

Pictures of the men killed were displayed on the trucks, accompanied by the slogan “Martyrs on the road to Jerusalem”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Israel “will be punished” for the killings.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Tehran backs Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in that attack.

One placard on Friday echoed Khamenei’s pledge to strike back after the Damascus strike: “We will make them regret this crime,” it said.

State television broadcast footage of similar gatherings on Friday in other Iranian cities including Mashhad, Qom, Sanandaj and Shahrekord.

Khamenei said on Wednesday the Damascus strike was a “desperate” effort by Israel that “will not save them from defeat” in Gaza.

Israel announced on Thursday it was strengthening its defences and pausing leave for combat units following Iran’s threats to retaliate.

Monday’s attack in Damascus, which the Observatory said killed 16 people, was the fifth raid on Syria in a week.

Iran, Israel’s arch foe, has been a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his country’s 13-year civil war.

Israel has long fought a shadow war of assassinations and sabotage against Iran and its armed allies, including Hezbollah and other militant groups, carrying out hundreds of strikes against targets in Syria.

The number of attacks has intensified since the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas began.

“It is quite clear that America has been one of the principal actors in the war continuing,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a statement published on Friday. 

After Friday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, Zahedi will be buried in his home city of Isfahan in central Iran.

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The Guards, including two generals, were killed in the air strike on Monday which levelled the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus. 

Israel has not commented on the strike, but analysts saw it as an escalation of its campaign against Iran and its regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Friday’s ceremony coincides with the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations, when Iran and its allies stage marches in support of the Palestinians.

Iran has said that among the dead were two brigadier generals from the Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi and Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

A Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Zahedi was the Quds Force commander for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

The coffins of the seven were placed on trailers of two trucks in one of the largest squares in the Iranian capital, an AFP journalist said.

Mourners held Iranian and Palestinian flags, as well as those from the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Pictures of the men killed were displayed on the trucks, accompanied by the slogan “Martyrs on the road to Jerusalem”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Israel “will be punished” for the killings.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Tehran backs Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in that attack.

One placard on Friday echoed Khamenei’s pledge to strike back after the Damascus strike: “We will make them regret this crime,” it said.

State television broadcast footage of similar gatherings on Friday in other Iranian cities including Mashhad, Qom, Sanandaj and Shahrekord.

Khamenei said on Wednesday the Damascus strike was a “desperate” effort by Israel that “will not save them from defeat” in Gaza.

Monday’s attack in Damascus, which the Observatory said killed 16 people, was the fifth raid on Syria in a week that has been blamed on Israel.

Iran, Israel’s arch foe, has been a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his country’s 13-year civil war.

Israel has long fought a shadow war of assassinations and sabotage against Iran and its armed allies, including Hezbollah and other militant groups, carrying out hundreds of strikes against targets in Syria.

The number of attacks has intensified since the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas began.

After Friday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, the bodies of the Revolutionary Guards killed in Damascus will be taken to their home towns for burial.

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“We hit the most disadvantaged areas,” said Tarek Obaid, head of Hope Bikers Syria, whose 50 volunteers make and distribute the food for various charities in the Syrian capital.

The bikers  — some sporting beards or wearing large silver rings on their fingers — head out as sunset approaches, racing to hand over the food so Muslims recipients can break their daytime fast.

The volunteers don their club’s signature blue vest, the front and back embroidered with their emblem: a flaming motorbike and the Syrian flag.

They help out for “humanitarian or moral” reasons, said Obaid, a swimming coach in his fifties who supervises the Ramadan rounds.

But the act of charity also lessens the stigma around bikes and their “Born to be Wild” image.

“Before, people avoided the motorbikes when they saw them, but now they are happy to see our blue (vests) or hear the noise of our bikes,” Obaid told AFP.

The group says it has no political affiliation and crosses faith boundaries, with Christian and Muslim members.

The Muslims among them break their fast after the rounds are done.

– ‘They love us’ –

“People have gotten to know us, they smile at us, they love us,” said Obaid, directing the riders on sport, dirt and classic motorbikes.

Syria has been ravaged by 13 years of war that has killed more than half a million people and battered the country’s economy and infrastructure.

Around 90 percent of the population is in poverty, according to the United Nations.

The motorbike club began its volunteer work during the Covid-19 pandemic, transporting oxygen bottles for those in urgent needed.

As the pandemic subsided, the bikers turned their attention elsewhere, including helping victims of an earthquake in February last year that ravaged parts of Syria, killing about 6,000 people there.

They have also been part of organising, with non-government organisations, recreational activities for orphaned children.

Earlier in the day, the volunteers gathered at a charity kitchen in Damascus to prepare vegetables, meat and rice, then packaged the meals for distribution.

They put on their silver, black or bright yellow helmets, ready to ride into the sunset: this time to a home for the elderly on the outskirts of Damascus.

The bikers move nimbly through busy areas, evading heavy traffic to deliver the meals swiftly.

They cover the cost of fuel themselves, a great help in a country blighted by petrol shortages that drive up prices, particularly after subsidies were lifted last year.

“Even though the motorbikes use less petrol, we struggle to get fuel” due to shortages and high costs, said George Hafteh, 37, a photographer and one of the bikers.

Motorcycles have also earned a bad reputation over the years of Syria’s economic crisis because thieves often use them to snatch bags or phones from people on the street.

But Hafteh said the group was trying to return biking to “its place in society, taking on our responsibility towards the people”.

When they arrive at the centre for the elderly, he and his fellow bikers take the meals up to the rooms, distributing them to people in beds.

Fellow club member Amer Totanji, 31, who works at a private-sector company, says he takes pleasure in what he can do on motorbikes.

They are “more than just a mode of transport” and have become “a means of helping people in need”, he added.

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Monday’s strike levelled the consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed 13 people, including seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported.

They included two senior commanders of the Guards’ Qud Force foreign operations arm, Brigadier Generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, Iranian officials said.

Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group called the attack “a significant escalation”. 

“By targeting an Iranian diplomatic facility, Israel has crossed a line,” he told AFP.

After months of battling Iran-backed Hamas militants in Gaza, Israel is now stepping up its operations against Iranian and pro-Iran commanders in Lebanon and Syria, a move observers fear could spiral into all-out war.

Iran has denied prior knowledge of Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

But it is one of Hamas’s top supporters and backs a plethora of armed groups that have attacked Israel in solidarity with Hamas, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has exchanged near-daily fire with Israel for months.

Although Iran has said it wants to avoid full-scale war, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Tuesday that “Israel will be punished” for the Damascus strike, while President Ebrahim Raisi said the raid “will not go unanswered”.

– ‘Towards escalation’ –

Bassam Abu Abdallah, who heads the Damascus Centre for Strategic Research and is close to the Syrian government, said that before Monday, “there were rules of engagement, but now it’s an all-out war between Israel and the resistance axis”.

Iran and its supporters use the term resistance axis to refer to its alliance with armed groups around the region which share its resolutely anti-Zionist and anti-American stance.

“It is now clear that the trend is towards escalation,” Abu Abdallah said, adding: “We could start to see increased attacks against US bases in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere.”

In late January, pro-Iran groups said they were suspending attacks against US troops in Iraq and Syria to avert a regional escalation, after both Baghdad and Tehran said they opposed the groups’ campaign.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah warned that the strike on the Iranian consulate “will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge”. 

Israel has responded to Hezbollah fire from Lebanon by extending its attacks deeper into the country and multiplying assassinations of the group’s commanders.

The Shiite Muslim militant group, which boasts a big arsenal of rockets and missiles, has largely restricted its attacks on Israel to the border region.

The Crisis Group’s Vaez said: “Iran is more likely than not to impose a cost on Israel, but it is likely to do so in an indirect manner and through its partners and proxies in the region.

“Iran’s dilemma is that failure to respond could signal weakness to Israel but retaliation risks a harsher US or Israeli action”.

– ‘Transnational war’ –

The Damascus strike could signal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, entangled in the Hamas war for nearly six months, is preparing for a wider regional conflict.

Under pressure from Washington, “Netanyahu is running out of time to conduct the war in Gaza, and is instead turning to Lebanon and Syria to weaken the Iranian regional military effort,” said Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.

“Israel views the conflicts against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon as two fronts in a transnational war against Iran, which the Iranians run from Damascus,” Heras added.

He said Netanyahu “expects Israel to have to soon fight a region-wide war with Iran” and for the United States to join it.

“The Israelis are trying to eliminate the most important and seasoned IRGC commanders to weaken Iranian planning and capabilities ahead of that war,” he added.

But diplomatic efforts are underway to de-escalate tensions, with Syrian ally Russia calling for a UN Security Council meeting on the strike later Tuesday.

Washington has told Tehran it was not involved in the Israeli strike, according to an American official quoted by US media outlet Axios.

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Four other people were also reported killed in Monday’s strike which levelled the five-storey building adjacent to the Iranian embassy and further stoked tensions already running high as the Gaza war nears the end of its sixth month.

Israel declined to comment on the strike, which fuelled Middle East tensions already enflamed by the war in Gaza between Israel and Iran ally Hamas.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that Israel would be punished.

“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 in a message published on his official website.

President Ebrahim Raisi 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.

The UN Security Council is to discuss the strike later Tuesday at a meeting requested by Syrian ally Russia.

The strike on the annex killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including two commanders of its Quds Force foreign operations arm, Brigadier Generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, Iranian offiials said.

Zahedi, 63, had held a succession of commands in the force in a Guards career spanning more than four decades.

A Britain-based monitor of the more than decade-old conflict in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike killed “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters.”

Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, told Iranian state TV that the attack “was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.

Only the gate of the building was left standing after the attack, with a sign reading “the consular section of the embassy of Iran”.

Windows were shattered within a 500-metre (550 yard) radius and many parked cars were damaged by the blast.

The adjacent facade of the Iranian embassy is decorated with a large portrait of Qasem Soleimani, a longtime Quds Force chief who was killed in a US drone strike just outside Baghdad airport in January 2020.

– ‘Important message to US’ –

Iran’s foreign minister said Israel’s main backer the United States also bore responsibility for the strike, even though an unidentified US official quoted by Axios insisted Washington “had no involvement” or advanced knowledge of it.

Amir-Abdollahian said on X that the ministry had summoned a diplomat from the Swiss embassy, which looks after US interests in Iran, to hear its protest.

“An important message was sent to the American government as the supporter of the Zionist regime. America must be held accountable,” he said in the post.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations warned the strike could “potentially ignite more conflict involving other nations” and called on the Security Council “to condemn this unjustified criminal act.”

Iran’s allies around the region and beyond voiced support for its position.

“China condemns the attack,” foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, adding “the security of diplomatic institutions cannot be violated, and Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity should be respected”.

The Iraqi foreign ministry condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of international law” and warned of “more chaos and instability” in the region.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group warned Israel would pay for killing Guards commanders. “This crime will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

Russia blamed the Israeli air force for the “unacceptable attack against the Iranian consular mission in Syria”.

Palestinian militant group Hamas condemned the strike, which it described as a “dangerous escalation”.

The Gaza war erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed nearly 33,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen have since carried out a series of attacks on Israeli and Western targets.

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Israel said it would not comment on the reported attack, but Iranian officials vowed a stiff response with fears of even further violence between Israel and Iran’s allies triggered by the Gaza war.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said eight people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy”.

Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, giving a lower toll, told Iranian state TV that “at least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.

AFP reporters saw the annex building had caved in, and emergency services were rushing to search for victims under the rubble as sirens wailed in the upscale Damascus district of Mazzeh.

Security sources shielded the site where earth-moving equipment was brought in to clear the debris and remove charred vehicles from the road outside, watched by a crowd of onlookers.

Syria’s defence ministry said “the attack destroyed the entire building, killing and injuring everyone inside, and work is underway to recover the bodies and rescue the wounded from under the rubble”.

Iranian state TV said among those killed was a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

The Observatory said it had “confirmed the killing of a high-ranking leader who served as the leader of the Quds Force for Syria and Lebanon, two Iranian advisors, and five members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard”.

The targeted building is next to the Iranian embassy, the front of which is decorated with a huge portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s military operations in the Middle East, killed in January 2020 in an US drone attack in Iraq.

The Damascus strikes were the fifth in eight days to hit Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is supported by Iran, Israel’s long-time arch foe in the region.

Syria’s state news agency SANA had earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.

Iran’s ambassador, Akbari, vowed the attack “will lead to our decisive response”, adding “the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate shows the reality of the Zionist entity which recognises no international laws and does all that is inhumane to achieve its goals”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for a “serious response by the international community”. 

– ‘Heinous attack’ –

Only the gate of the building was left standing after the attack, with a sign mentioning “the consular section of the embassy of Iran”, an AFP journalist said.

Window panes in buildings within a 500-metre (yard) radius had been shattered, and many parked cars were damaged by the blast.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also denounced the attack after visiting the site.

“We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack that targeted the Iranian consulate building in Damascus killing a number of innocent people,” Mekdad said in a statement carried by SANA.

The Gaza war, which started with the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, has devastated the coastal territory and also seen Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah exchange near daily cross-border fire.

Israel has also struck targets in Syria, mostly army positions as well as those of Iran-backed combatants.

The Damascus strike came three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that had killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah.

It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began, said the monitor.

“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP after the Friday strikes.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war erupted with the Palestinian militants’ unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

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