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Residential building destroyed in airstrike in Damascus' Masseh district

Photo: Sana / REUTERS

According to media reports, an air strike on a building in the Syrian capital Damascus killed, among others, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's secret service for Syria and his deputy.

As the Iranian news agency Mehr reported on Saturday with reference to informed circles, two other members of the Revolutionary Guard were also killed in the attack

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “leaders allied with Iran” met in the multi-story building.

Accordingly, the house was completely destroyed.

The Observatory is based in the UK and draws its information from a network of sources in Syria.

She said the area that was attacked was known as a high-security zone.

Representatives of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and pro-Iranian Palestinian organizations regularly stay there.

A little later, Iran confirmed on state radio that several members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) had been killed in the attack.

Responsibility for the attack was attributed to Israel, but the country has not yet commented on it.

Eyewitnesses report an explosion

The Syrian state news agency Sana also reported the attack.

There was an “attack on a residential building in the Masseh district of Damascus” that was caused by an “Israeli attack,” Sana reported.

She did not provide any information about possible victims.

In Masseh there are, among other things, UN buildings, embassies and restaurants.

"I heard the explosion clearly in the western Masseh district and saw a large cloud of smoke," a resident told the AFP news agency.

"The sound resembled that of a rocket explosion and minutes later I heard the sound of ambulances."

Israel is intensifying its attacks on Syria

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has shelled the neighboring country hundreds of times from the air.

The attacks are particularly directed against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, but also against positions of the Syrian army.

Most recently, Israel said it killed an important member of the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas in Syria.

"The army has eliminated Hassan Hakasha in Beit Jinn in Syria," the Israeli military said in a statement afterwards.

The town is located southwest of Damascus near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel has intensified its airstrikes in Syria since the Islamist Hamas' brutal major attack on Israel on October 7th.

In general, Israel hardly comments on individual attacks in Syria.

But it repeatedly emphasizes that it will not allow its arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.

Tehran is allied with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

OK/AFP/dpa