Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday that Israel’s embassies around the world are “no longer safe” after the alleged Israeli airstrike that killed an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander in Damascus, Syria, on April 1.
“The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe,” Safavi declared in comments to Iranian state media.
“The shadow of fear and terror looms over the occupied lands, and the Zionists see the specter of death in their dreams every night,” he said.
Safavi claimed Israel had shuttered 28 of its embassies and consulates due to “fear” of Iran’s retaliation.
“Confronting this brutal regime is a legal and legitimate right,” he insisted.
Iranians attend the funeral of seven Revolutionary Guard Corps members killed in a strike on the country’s consular annex in Damascus, Syria, on April 5, 2024, in Tehran. (HOSSEIN BERIS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Various Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Khamenei, have vowed to avenge the Damascus strike with some sort of military or terrorist action. Safavi declined to speculate on what form the response would take.
“The resistance front is ready; how it will be, we have to wait,” he said.
Iran claims the April 1 airstrike, which Israel has not formally taken credit for, killed seven IRGC officers, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the senior commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and the most senior Iranian commander to be killed since a U.S. airstrike took out Quds Force leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
Rescue workers search in the rubble of a building annexed to the Iranian embassy a day after an air strike in Damascus on April 2, 2024. (LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
Soleimani was killed while plotting with Iran-backed Shiite militia leaders in Iraq to attack U.S. positions and kill American personnel. Zahedi was evidently at the Iranian consulate in Damascus when it was destroyed.
Although Iran was coy about admitting exactly what Zahedi was doing in Damascus on the day he was killed, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Lebanese sources on Monday who said Zahedi held a seat on the leadership council of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group and political party in Lebanon.
Iranians attend the funeral of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Tehran, Iran on April 4, 2024. (HOSSEIN BERIS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
According to AFP’s sources, Zahedi was the only non-Lebanese to sit on the eight-member “Shura Council” that governs Hezbollah. The leader of the organization, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a eulogy for Zahedi on Friday, saying the Iranian officer “lived with us for long years, away from the spotlight, and provided important services to the resistance in Lebanon and the whole region.”
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian visited Damascus to inaugurate a new consulate building. Amirabdollahian was also scheduled to meet with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to discuss possible responses to the alleged Israeli strike.
