- Following reports that it killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) advisor in Syria, Iran has threatened Israel that it will “pay the price”.
- Sayyed Razi Mousavi, an adviser to the IRGC, was killed on Monday in an airstrike close to Damascus, the capital of Syria, according to Iranian official media. Three security sources confirmed to Reuters that Mousavi had passed away. Mousavi was supposedly the chief coordinator of the military cooperation between Iran and Syria.
- Mousavi was reportedly described by Iranian state television as “among those accompanying Qassem Soleimani,” the deceased leader of IRGC’s Quds Force. Soleimani was killed in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike in January 2020.
- IRGC said in a statement that “the usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime.” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi similarly said that Israel would “certainly pay the price” for Mousavi’s death, calling it “a sign of the Zionist regime’s frustration and weakness in the region.”
- Raisi also said that Mousavi “was martyred while serving as an advisor for the resistance front, defending holy shrines in Syria as well as safeguarding Islamic ideals,” according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
- While Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not officially confirmed that it was responsible for Mousavi’s death, Haaretz reported that Israel was preparing for a potential retaliatory strike from the north.
