Iran has vowed vengeance for what it called the "cowardly crime" of a suspected Israeli missile strike which destroyed an Iranian embassy building in Syria on Monday.
The attack, which destroyed the Iranian embassy's consular annex in Syrian capital Damascus, killed 11 people - including two top-ranking generals in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, an IRGC member responsible for operations in Syria and Lebanon, was killed alongside Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi and five other officers.
Lebanese security sources also told Reuters a member of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement was killed.
Israel's defence minister (centre) promised a "high price" for threatening it, while Ayatollah Khamenei (right) threatened to "punish" the "evil regime"
Reuters
Senior officials in the Iran, including its President Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued incendiary responses to the attack - prompting fears of further escalation throughout the Middle East.
President Raisi said: "Having failed to destroy the will of the resistance front, the Zionist regime [Israel] has put blind assassinations back on its agenda to save itself.
"The Zionists must know that they will not achieve their goals; [the] crime of attack on consulate in Damascus will not go unanswered," he continued, according to the Iran-friendly Lebanese channel Al Mayadeen.
While Ayatollah Khamenei said: "The evil regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men. We will make them regret this crime and others like it."
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Iran accused Israel of orchestrating the strike on its consular building in Damascus
Reuters
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to the Ayatollah, claimed the US "remains directly responsible, whether or not it was aware of the intention to carry out this attack."
But US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said it "had no involvement in the strike" and "did not know about it ahead of time".
Iran's ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, directly accused Israel of orchestrating the strike; he said the country's F-35 fighter jets "targeted [his] place of residence and the consular section of the embassy, along with Iran's military attaches".
Hezbollah offered condolences to Iran for Zahedi’s death, calling Israel "foolish when it believes that liquidating the leaders can stop the roaring tide of the people’s resistance".
Images from this morning show a clean-up operation already underway at the Iranian embassy building
Reuters
The militia group added that the killing "will not pass without the enemy receiving punishment and revenge".
Though he did not reference the strike, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a parliamentary committee today: "We are currently in a multi-front war - we see evidence of this every day, including over the last few days.
"We operate everywhere, every day, in order to prevent our enemies from gaining strength and in order to make it clear to anyone who threatens us - all over the Middle East - that the price for such action will be a big one."
Gallant's statement follows another last week by an Israeli defence official, who said: "Iran has decided not to confront Israel directly, but is still trying behind the scenes to direct its regional proxies against us... We’re determined to expose them."
