Syrian Presidential Advisor Bouthaina Shaaban praised the role of late commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in each of Iran, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, describing him as the owner of “strategic thinking that undermines the enemy’s strategy.”
Shaaban was speaking during a ceremony held by the Iranian embassy in Damascus on the first anniversary of Soleimani’s killing in a US strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
The ceremony was attended by Iranian ambassador to Damascus, Jawad Turkabadi, and a large number of Syrian officials and representatives of Palestinian organizations in the Syrian capital.
Meanwhile, the official Syrian TV said that Israel struck targets in southern Syria on Wednesday, the third attack of its kind in around 10 days, Reuters reported.
A military spokesman quoted by Reuters said missiles flying over the Golan Heights targeted several locations and air defenses downed several missiles.
“Our air defenses responded to an aerial Israeli aggression... on some targets in the southern region,” state media quoted a Syrian army spokesman as saying.
According to the news agency, two military defectors said the strikes hit the Kisswa area in the southern outskirts of the capital Damascus and military bases used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
Israeli military officials have said in recent months that Israel would escalate its campaign against the Iranian presence in Syria, according to Reuters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Israeli raids targeted sites where “Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah” were stationed, which resulted in “deaths and injuries.”
Reuters noted that while no immediate comment was made by an Israeli military spokesman, Israel’s Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said last month the missile strikes had “slowed down Iran’s entrenchment in Syria”.
