FRACTUREBREAK,
Sayyed Razi Mousavi was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
A senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has reportedly been killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Syrian capital Damascus.
Sayyed Razi Mousavi, one of the top IRGC commanders in Syria, was killed on Monday.
He was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
Mousavi “was killed a few hours ago in an attack by the Zionist regime in the Zeinabiyah district in the suburbs of Damascus,” Iran's official IRNA news agency reported, using a different name for Sayyida Zeinab, south of the Syrian capital.
Iranian state television interrupted its regular newscast to announce that Mousavi had been killed, describing him as one of the most senior IRGC advisers in Syria.
It said he was “one of the companions of Qassem Soleimani,” the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has for years carried out attacks on targets it believes are linked to Iran in Syria, where Tehran's influence has increased since it backed President Bashar al-Assad in the war that broke out in Syria in 2011.
Earlier this month, Iran said Israeli strikes had killed two IRGC members in Syria who had served as military advisers there.