The source, part of a network of groups close to Syria’s government and its major ally Iran, said the multi-storey building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and that it was entirely flattened by “precision-targeted Israeli missiles”.
Iranian media outlets reported that two senior Iranian military advisers were killed in the strike.
“Two high-ranking Iranian advisers were martyred in today’s attack by the Zionist regime (Israel) in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus,” Iran’s Mehr news agency said, quoting an informed but unnamed source.
State-run Press TV reported the same information, adding that the two were members of the IRGC.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources inside Syria, said the targeted neighbourhood is known to be a high-security zone home to leaders of the IRGC and pro-Iran Palestinian factions.
“They were for sure targeting senior members” of those groups, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The mid-morning strike, which caused a large plume of smoke to billow into the sky, was also reported by Syrian state media.
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“An attack targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus, resulting from an Israeli aggression,” the official SANA news agency reported. It did not say if there were any casualties.
The Mazzeh area is home to the United Nations’ headquarters, embassies and restaurants.
“I heard the explosion clearly in the western Mazzeh area, and I saw a large cloud of smoke,” a resident told Agence France-Presse.
“The sound was similar to a missile explosion, and minutes later I heard the sound of ambulances,” he added.
During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.
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But it has intensified attacks since the war between Israel and Hamas, which like Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement is an ally of Iran, began on October 7.
In December, an Israeli air strike killed a senior general with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the military force said.
Razi Moussavi was the most senior commander of the Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, to be killed outside Iran since a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 killed the Force’s commander, Qassem Soleimani.
In the same month, air strikes in eastern Syria, “likely” carried out by Israel, killed at least 23 pro-Iran fighters, the Observatory said at the time, reporting four more dead in the country’s north.
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Recent months have also seen regular cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes targeting Syria, but it has repeatedly said it will not allow arch foe Iran, which backs President Bashar al-Assad’s government, to expand its presence there.
Since 2011, Syria has endured a bloody conflict that has claimed over half a million lives and displaced several million people.
Additional reporting by Reuters