The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence chief in Syria is said to have been killed in an attack in the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to Iranian media.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry accuses Israel of being behind the attack – and promises revenge.
The Revolutionary Guard announces that four of the Guard’s members were killed in the attack.
According to information provided to Iranian media, the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence chief in Syria, as well as the deputy intelligence chief, are among those killed.
Iran reserves the right to respond to the attack, and will do so “at the appropriate time and place,” State Department spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
Israel’s military has not commented on the attack.
It was a residential building with several floors that was hit. A large plume of smoke rose from the site where the attacked building was reduced to a pile of rubble, and rescue workers searched for survivors.
At least ten people were killed in the attack, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
According to SOHR, which has a network of sources in Syria, the building was used by Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders as well as pro-Palestinian groups.
A meeting is reported to have been in progress when the attack occurred. SOHR chief Rami Abdel Rahman says the attack targeted senior figures in those groups.
At the end of last December, the Iranian Major General Razi Moussavi was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria.