The death of a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander in an apparent Israeli air strike could elicit a retaliatory response from Iran, one expert warned.
Iran is likely to respond and target Israelis after a top commander of its Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
“Given the target and location of the strike – at a building adjacent to the consulate — I expect the Iranians to respond,” Bill Roggio, managing editor of Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital.
Roggio’s comments come after Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior IRGC commander, was reportedly killed Monday in an air strike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital, according to a report from Reuters.
Iran’s consulate was flattened in the strike, according to the report, which noted that Syrian and Iranian media had blamed the carnage on an Israeli air strike.
Israel declined to comment on the apparent strike, Reuters reported, with an Israeli military spokesperson telling the outlet that it does “not comment on reports in foreign media.”
But the strike, which Iranian state television reported also killed several Iranian diplomats, is likely to draw some sort of response, Roggio said.
“It is difficult to say how the Iranians respond,” Roggio said. “The Iranians may try to target Israelis overseas, and may also leverage its militias – Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi and Syria militias, to strike at targets within Israel.”
Israel has stepped up strikes in Syria and on Iranian-backed targets since the Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, Reuters noted, hitting both Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror groups as well as IRGC targets.
Yigal Carmon, a former adviser to two Israeli prime ministers on countering terrorism and founder and president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told Fox News Digital that, “Khamenei’s policies over the years reflect cowardice.
