Reuters :
Iran vowed on Tuesday to take revenge on Israel for an airstrike that killed two of its top generals and five other military advisers at the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, underlining the risk of further escalation after the unprecedented attack.
Conflict has rippled across the Middle East since the onset of the Gaza war; until now, Tehran has carefully avoided direct conflict with Israel while backing allies attacking Israeli and US targets.
Israel has not declared responsibility for the attack which destroyed a consular building adjacent to the main embassy building in the upscale Mezzeh district of Damascus on Monday night, killing seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
But a senior Israeli government official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said those hit had “been behind many attacks on Israeli and American assets and had plans for additional attacks”. The embassy “was not a target”, the official said.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed revenge. “The Zionist regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men. We will make it regret this crime and others it has committed,” he said.
Khamenei’s political advisor Ali Shamkhani, in a post on X, said the United States “remains directly responsible whether or not it was aware of the intention to carry out this attack”.
