Israel Widens War Front with Killing of Third Senior Iranian Official in Syria

Though Israel has been running many aerial attacks on alleged Iranian installations for some time, this latest may end up being the one which pushes the Israel-Iran conflict to the next level.

This time they killed Brigadier General Sayyed Razi Mousavi of the Iran Revolutionary Guards. A longtime member of the elite Quds part of that paramilitary force, Mousavi was reportedly the most senior Iranian advisor in Syria and was responsible for maintaining the strategic alliance with that country. It is believed he acted as Iran’s top attaché in coordinating the supply of weapons and training from Iran to Hezbollah. 

Mousavi is also known as one of the most senior Revolutionary Guards personnel who had served alongside Qassem Soleimani, the former Iranian Commander of the Quds Force of Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (IRGC). Soleimani, once considered the second most powerful person in Iran and second only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, was himself killed in an aerial drone strike on January 3, 2020, just outside Baghdad Airport. The U.S. executed that mission while Trump occupied the White House.

Mousavi may also have been had some involvement in supply of drones and other Iranian munitions into Yemen over the last several years, in support of the Houthi rebels in the civil war which began over ten years ago, against the official-recognized government backed by a Saudi Arabia-led alliance there. More recently, Mousavi may have been a key player in coordinating some of the Iranian weapons and military aircraft transfers that the Houthis are understood to have been using in their enforcement of a de facto maritime blockade on all shipping within the Red Sea, either heading towards Israel or owned by Israel.

All are possible reasons for Israel’s latest airstrike yesterday just outside of Damascus, Syria’s capital, precisely where Mousavi was known by U.S. CIA and Israeli Mossad forces to have been staying.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Mousavi was picked off by Israeli forces as he approached a farm in the Zeinabiyah suburban district. That farm is alleged by Mossad and other intelligence agencies to have been one of several locations where Hezbollah military personnel based in Syria were often based.

Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, denied the claims about what Mousavi was reportedly doing as Israeli missiles blew up Mousavi. Akbari said instead that Mousavi was on his way home from official diplomatic business at the time. He acknowledged Mousavi’s role in Syria as a “formal military advisor” but did not provide details on what that meant.

Israel has increased the number of airstrikes in Syria since the October 7 phase of the war in Gaza began. On the occasions when it has called attention to those attacks, it said the targets were either Iranian forces based in Syria, or Iran-supported personnel who themselves were there at least partly in support of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. According to Iranian officials, Israel’s military reportedly killed two other senior officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Syria in the last month.

Soon after the Iranian Brigadier General’s death was announced by Iranian news media, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group seems to have confirmed Mousavi’s role in support of the Palestinians in Gaza and those operating outside Israel on their behalf. It expressed shock and sadness over his death, saying he was making a difference in support of the Palestinian resistance movement in the occupied homelands in Gaza and on the West Bank.

In a statement, it called the Israeli Defense Forces airstrike against Mousavi a “cowardly act”.

Hezbollah issued its own statement on Mousavi’s death. It referred to Mousavi as “one of the best of brothers who worked to support the Islamic resistance in Lebanon for decades of his honorable life”.

The official reaction of Iran to what happened was a mix of sadness over the death of someone clearly highly regarded within Iran and harsh criticism of Israel, both for his killing and for the ongoing destruction of Gaza at Israeli hands.

“The assassination was a show of Israel’s weakness,” said Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a statement. “This act is a sign of the Zionist regime's frustration and weakness in the region for which it will certainly pay the price.”

A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued a parallel statement, fully aligned with Raisi’s comments.

“Condolences on the martyrdom of this heroic commander to his noble family and the commanders and fighters of the Islamic Resistance Front,” the statement read. “The usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime.”

Separately, the Foreign Ministry of Iran’s Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson, declared that “Iran reserves the right to take necessary measures to respond to this action at the appropriate time and place."

That was echoed by a similar statement, made live to the press from Damascus by Iranian Ambassador Akbari.

“[Israel] will definitely get a response to this crime at the right time and the right situation,” Akbari told the press.

Israel did acknowledge that Mousavi was dead, but only obliquely acknowledged it might have been involved in his killing.

That response came from Israeli Defense Forces chief spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, in a statement released long after the Iranian media reported Musavi’s death.

“I am not referring to this or that operation in the Middle East reported by non-Israeli media,” Hagari said. “The IDF has a role, of course: to protect and safeguard the security interests of the state of Israel.”

With Mousavi being the most senior Iranian official in Syria killed to date, and with there also having been two other high-ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guards personnel also taken out by Israeli Defense Forces airstrikes, these latest threats by Iran to take revenge for the three killings sometime soon. Historically Iran has been reserved and cautious in its counterattacks, so even though Iran is expected to act it is not expected immediately.

Israel announced a new state of “high alert” yesterday for their country, to protect against the possibility that Iran or its ally Hezbollah might soon launch their own counterstrikes on fascist Israel sometime soon.