Removal of Iranian officials in Syria: Tehran suspects involvement of local factions (Bloomberg)

According to the channel's revelations Bloomberg, an Israeli strike against the Iranian embassy in Syria would have destroyed the entire chain of command responsible for Revolutionary Guard operations in Syria and Lebanon. According to the statement, “these senior officers are vital to Hezbollah's operations in the region.” Reports indicate that General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Rahimi, along with other slain officials, believed that the embassy building next to the embassy was “safe” in Damascus and that “Israel would not dare to attack.” him. Just before the strike, senior leaders of Syria's Revolutionary Guards met on the second floor of the embassy and decided to stay there.

The attack is the first time Iran has been forced to directly retaliate against Israel. Immediately, Tehran began to suspect the involvement of Syrian groups in several assassinations of members of the Revolutionary Guards in the country in recent years. A Syrian defector who opposes the Assad regime says he has spoken to an Iranian official, raising Iran's suspicions about the deaths of 18 generals killed in a short period of time in strikes attributed to Israel.

A joint Iranian-Syrian investigation was first launched after the assassination of Raza Mousavi in ​​Syria in December 2023, to try to identify a possible security breach. But fearing the involvement of Syrian intelligence services, Iran decided to conduct an independent investigation with Hezbollah. The inquiry concluded that the flaws that led to Mousavi's assassination in 2023 had already benefited from high-level political and security protection, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was unlikely to have realized it.

The defector added that Tehran's suspicions were strengthened by the fact that the Hezbollah members killed in the country were linked to the Syrian security services, and that it was only possible to eliminate them by using advanced technologies for espionage.