Iran general killed in Syria was on Hezbollah's top council

AFP | Beirut        

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

An Iranian general killed in a strike in Syria's capital was a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council, the powerful Lebanese group's decision-making body, a source close to the movement said.

The April 1 air strike levelled the Iranian embassy's consular annex in Damascus, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, including two generals.

One of them was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Quds Force, the Guards' foreign operations arm.

Zahedi was the only non-Lebanese on Hezbollah's eight-member Shura Council, the equivalent of the powerful Shiite Muslim movement's political bureau, led by secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, the source said, requesting anonymity because the matter is sensitive.

Nasrallah was set to speak on Monday to pay homage to Zahedi and his colleagues killed in the strike, which Tehran and Damascus have blamed on Israel.

In a previous speech, Nasrallah said his group "owed a lot" to the senior Iranian official.

Zahedi "lived with us for long years, away from the spotlight, and provided important services to the resistance in Lebanon and the whole region," Nasrallah said Friday during a televised address.

Zahedi, 63, had held a succession of commands in a Guards career spanning more than 40 years, and was the most important Iranian military official killed since a United States missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed General Qasem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force.

Tehran has promised to respond to the strike, which killed 16 people including two civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor of Syria's years-long civil war.