Iran threatens Israel: We will respond strongly!

(Patria) - Iran's Minister of Defence threatened retaliation against Israel after a high-ranking general was killed in Syria.

"At the right time and in the right place, we will respond strongly to the weak Zionist enemy (Israel)," Mohamad Reza Ashtiani said on Wednesday, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.

General Seyed Razi Mousavi of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed on Monday in an alleged Israeli airstrike on a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

According to The New York Times, Mousavi helped oversee the delivery of weapons to the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and has repeatedly attacked northern Israel in support of Hamas since the start of the war in Gaza.

Israel frequently attacks sites in war-torn Syria to prevent Iran from expanding its military influence in the region through local militias.

Mousavi was a confidant of powerful IRGC General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by the United States in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020, Tasnim writes.

Although little was previously known about General Mousavi, he was considered one of the Revolutionary Guard's most influential officers abroad.