Iran Revolutionary Guard member and two others killed in attack in Syria

A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and two other people have been killed in a suspected Israeli attack in Syria, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

IRNA said Reza Zarei, a member of the IRGC, had been “killed at dawn today by the usurping Zionist regime” in the port city of Baniyas.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor corroborated the news of Friday’s attack.

It said three explosions shook the centre of Baniyas, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, during the dawn strike on a villa that sheltered “a group affiliated with Iran”.

A building was destroyed, killing an Iranian and two other non-Syrians who were with him, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

There were separate reports that several others were also injured in the attack.

There was no comment from Israel after the strike, but its air force has repeatedly bombed targets in Syria.

On Thursday, Israel killed a Hezbollah member in a strike on Syria, close to the Lebanese border, the Observatory said, hours after similar attacks.

“Yet another targeted assassination in Syria, yet another member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards killed in Syria,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut in Lebanon on Friday.

“Iranian media is blaming Israel. Israel usually does not comment on individual strikes but it has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes against Iranian targets and Iranian-linked targets in recent years.

“But in recent weeks, what we have seen is more frequent attacks, similar attacks. Back in December, for example, one of the top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria was assassinated in Damascus.”

Israel has been carrying out raids for years as it does not want Iran to entrench itself militarily in Syria, according to Khodr. But since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, its strategy has changed.

“It is now going after high-value targets,” our correspondent said.

“Reza Zarei, the man who was killed in Baniyas, was in charge of Iranian oil shipments to Syria. According to analysts, Israel is targeting these high-value targets to cut the link between the command in Tehran and local actors in Syria affiliated to Iran,” she added.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to a spate of deadly Israeli attacks and were relying more on allied militias to preserve their sway there, the Reuters news agency reported in February.