Israeli airstrike in Syria kills top Iranian general Razi Mousavi

New Delhi: An Israeli airstrike on Monday in a Damascus neighbourhood killed a high-ranking Iranian general, Iranian state media said.

Following this, Israel is said to be on "highest state of alert, awaiting Iran's response" to the killing of senior IRGC general.

The killing of Razi Mousavi, a long-time adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, comes as clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel continue to intensify with fears of the Israel-Hamas war sparking a regional spillover with Iran-backed groups.

The Israeli strikes killed two other generals earlier this month in Syria.

Israel struck the Sayida Zeinab neighbourhood, located near a Shiite Muslim shrine, Iran's official news agency IRNA and Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. IRNA described Mousavi as a close companion of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force who was slain in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.

Neither the Israeli military nor Syrian state media immediately issued a statement about the attack.

Though IRNA didn't provide other details about the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli military targeted Mousavi after he entered a farm in the area, which allegedly was one of several offices for Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group, alongside Iran and Russia, has played a key military role in keeping President Bashar Assad's government in power throughout the Syrian conflict.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years.

It doesn't usually acknowledge its airstrikes on Syria. But when it does, it says it's targeting Iranian-backed groups there that have backed Assad's government. (AP)