Air strike kills IRGC commander at Iraq-Syria border, Iraqi officials say
Airstrike kills IRGC commander at Iraq-Syria border, Iraqi officials say
An airstrike killed a commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard at the Iraq-Syria border sometime over the weekend, Iraqi security and local militia officials said on Monday.
Officials could not confirm the identity of the commander, who they said was killed alongside three other men traveling in a vehicle with him.
The vehicle was carrying weapons across the Iraqi border and was hit after it had entered Syrian territory, two Iraqi security officials separately told Reuters.
Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups helped retrieve the bodies, the two officials said, without elaborating or giving the exact time of the incident. The Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV channel, which is close to the Syrian government and Lebanese Hezbollah, said that trusted sources have denied the assassination of an Iranian commander and three of his bodyguards. Several Arab media reports have identified the commander as Muslim Shahdan. The reported incident comes just days after Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in Tehran in an operation that Iran has blamed on Israel. Israel launched air raids against what it called a wide range of Syrian government and Iranian targets in Syria last week, signaling that it will pursue its policy of striking Iranian targets in the region as US President Donald Trump prepares to leave the office. Dozens of Iran-backed fighters have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria over the past month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iranian and Hezbollah forces as well as Syrian government troops. The killing of Fakhrizadeh and attacks on Iranian-backed groups are seen by analysts as an attempt by Israel.
