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Tehran Declares ‘Countdown’ to Retaliation for Killing of Mousavi

Razi Mousavi, the logistical support officer for the Quds Force in Syria, was killed in an Israeli raid near Damascus on Monday. (Tasnim Agency)
Razi Mousavi, the logistical support officer for the Quds Force in Syria, was killed in an Israeli raid near Damascus on Monday. (Tasnim Agency)
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Tehran Declares ‘Countdown’ to Retaliation for Killing of Mousavi

Razi Mousavi, the logistical support officer for the Quds Force in Syria, was killed in an Israeli raid near Damascus on Monday. (Tasnim Agency)
Razi Mousavi, the logistical support officer for the Quds Force in Syria, was killed in an Israeli raid near Damascus on Monday. (Tasnim Agency)

Iran has vowed on Tuesday a harsh response to the killing of Razi Mousavi, supply officer of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Syria.

Mousavi was killed in an airstrike on the Sayeda Zeinab in Damascus countryside.

The Israeli airstrike claimed the lives of three fighters loyal to Tehran, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Two foreign fighters and one Syrian fighter were also killed in the Israeli strike," said the Observatory.

It added that Moussavi was targeted shortly after he entered a farm. Residents in the Sayeda Zeinab district south of Damascus, where the strike hit, reported that Iran-backed groups have tightened security there.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Abdollahian said in a post on X that “Tel Aviv faces a tough countdown.”

Iranian Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri said, “Israel committed a strategic mistake, and their crimes will not remain unanswered.”

General Jafar Assadi, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria, said that the Zionist entity targeted in recent weeks one of the headquarters frequented by Reza Mousavi, and he was not there at the time, but this time spies were able to determine his location, according to an agency affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Assadi did not identify the spies or how they were informed of Mousavi’s movements.

He added: “What the Israelis did was not rational and correct. It seems that they want to cling to anything, but this will not benefit them.”

“They want to expand the war. Israel’s friends always advise it to exercise restraint, but what benefit will restraint do for it?”

Assadi pointed out that Mousavi “carried out many actions in Syria, and had the trust of General Soleimani,” noting “everyone knows him in Syria, from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to others.”

Iranian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Amir Saeed Iravani warned in a letter to the Security Council that “Iran has its legitimate and inherent rights based on international law and the United Nations Charter for a decisive response at the appropriate time,” according to IRNA.

Despite Iranian accusations, Israel did not claim responsibility, but the US website Axios quoted Israeli officials as saying that the Israeli army is preparing to take revenge on Syria and Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hinted on Tuesday that the country had retaliated in Iraq, Yemen, and Iran for attacks carried out against it as the war in the Gaza Strip widens to other areas of the region.

"We are in a multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran. We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres," he told lawmakers.

“I say here in the clearest way: Anyone who acts against us is a potential target, there is no immunity for anyone,” he added.

Gallant says the war in Gaza will be “a long, hard war.”

“It has costs - heavy costs - but its justification is the highest that can be.”

“Without meeting the goals of the war, we will find ourselves in a situation where... the problem will be that people will not want to live in a place where we do not know how to protect them,” he said.

For his part, Iranian Defense Ministry Spokesman Brigadier General Reza Talai said Israel will receive a decisive and intelligent response.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi pledged that "Israel will certainly pay the price for its crime."

Shortly after his death was confirmed, a statement from the Revolutionary Guards said that Mousavi was the supply official in the Resistance Front in Syria, and one of the companions of the former official of foreign operations in the Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an American air strike in Baghdad in early 2020.

Mousavi was the last person to accompany Soleimani in the last hours before he left Damascus for Baghdad, according to the Revolutionary Guards’ websites.

Iran's Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari said that Mousavi was at the Iranian embassy at 2 p.m. local time and lost his life after being struck by three missiles upon returning home.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guard media provided additional details of Mousavi’s roles outside Iranian borders.

Tasnim said that he “played roles for 25 years in the (Resistance Front).”

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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.