Huge crowds have turned out in the Iranian capital for the funeral of three military advisors of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who were assassinated in an Israeli attack on the Syrian capital Damascus.
People gathered in a northeastern neighborhood in Tehran on Monday to pay tribute to the victims of the Israeli strike that took place near Damascus on Saturday. Another funeral ceremony for the other two martyrs will be held in the holy city of Qom.
The participants chanted slogans against the United States and Israel.
In a statement on Saturday, the IRGC said that five of its members serving on a military advisory mission in Syria were assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the tightly guarded Mezzeh neighborhood, west of Damascus. It said later that a fifth advisor had succumbed to his injuries.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi said Israel’s terrorist act is an indicative of the regime’s failure to achieve its malicious goals and the depth of its frustration with the fighters of the resistance front, warning that the targeted killing will not go unanswered.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani also said the Islamic Republic reserves the right to respond to the organized terrorism of the occupying entity at an appropriate time and place.
In a post on his X account late Saturday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iranian military advisors will continue their anti-terror mission in the region in defiance of Israel’s “cowardly” assassination operations.
Iran has maintained an advisory mission in Syria at the request of Damascus with the aim of helping the war-torn country vanquish the foreign-backed militants, who have been fighting against the Syrian government since 2011.
Iran’s advisory assistance helped Syria defeat Daesh and win back control of almost all regions from terrorists.
The Israeli Saturday strike came just days after the IRGC targeted a building in Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, killing a key Israeli intelligence officer.
