The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has strongly condemned Israel’s assassination of a senior Iranian military advisor in Syria, saying the occupying regime should await a decisive response to its cowardly act.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad said Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi, a commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), played a pivotal role in supporting regional resistance forces as well as the Palestinian nation, resistance and cause.
“The occupying regime’s dirty assassination operation proves once again that this criminal regime contaminates the entire region and its only job is to shed the blood [of people] and spread murder and crimes,” it added.
“We reiterate that the crimes of the occupying Zionist regime and its encroachment on regional stability and security will lead to its defeat at the hands of resistance forces.”
Mousavi was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood on Monday. He was a comrade of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
US, West had ‘direct’ role in assassination
In a separate statement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) offered condolences to the Iranian nation and Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei over General Mousavi’s martyrdom, saying the commander played an important role in supporting the resistance and developing its capabilities.
Mousavi’s assassination, which was carried out with “direct coordination and participation of the US and the West,” shows that the criminal doctrine of the Zionist aggressor regime targets the whole world and region, the group noted.
It further said, “This crime will have no result other than escalating attacks by the resistance against the Zionist regime and its mercenaries in the region.”
“We will never allow the occupying, criminal and cowardly enemy to feel safe and stable in the region. It must always live in terror and panic and await the next response.”
Mousavi was martyred while serving Iran’s military advisory mission in Syria. Iranians are Syria in purely an advise-and-assist capacity.
The mission was the first to rush to Syria’s assistance in 2014, when the Arab country found itself in the grip of the Daesh Takfiri terror group.
Led by General Soleimani, the mission played an instrumental role in Damascus’ successful counterterrorism push that ultimately defeated Daesh in late 2017.
