Israel air strike kills high-ranking Iranian general Sayyed Razi Mousavi in Syria
- The senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was responsible for coordinating the country’s military alliance with Syria
- Iran’s president said the assassination showed ‘weakness’ on the part of Israel, while the Guards said the ‘Zionist regime’ would ‘pay for this crime’
An Israeli air strike outside the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday killed a senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, three security sources and Iranian state media said.
The sources said that Sayyed Razi Mousavi, who held the rank of brigadier-general, was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
Iran’s state television interrupted its regular news broadcast to announce that Mousavi had been killed, describing him as one of the Guards’ oldest advisers in Syria.
It said he had been “among those accompanying Qassem Soleimani”, the head of the Guards’ elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone attack in Iraq in 2020.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the assassination of Mousavi showed weakness on the part of Israel.
“This act is a sign of the Zionist regime’s frustration and weakness in the region for which it will certainly pay the price,” Iranian media cited Raisi as saying.