Iranian IRGC “Adviser” Killed in Israeli Strike on Damascus

An Iranian “adviser” of the islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed on February 2 in an Israeli missile strike that targeted the Syrian capital, Damascus, Iran’s media reported.

The reports identified the dead man as Saeid Alidadi, without giving his rank.

The Islamic Republic commonly uses the term "adviser" to describe its forces deployed in Syria to support the forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Tehran.

Earlier, Syria's state news agency SANA quoted a Syrian military source as saying that the country’s army had downed Israeli missiles launched at southern Damascus. The report said the strikes resulted in material damage only.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, "three members of pro-Iran groups, including an Iranian and an Iraqi," were killed in the "Israeli air strikes."

Israel has for years carried out attacks on Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting al-Assad in a civil war that started in 2011.

Since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Israeli military has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria. 

Sources have told the Reuters news agency that the IRGC have started scaling back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to concerns about the Islamic Republic being sucked into a wider regional conflict.

The Revolutionary Guards will instead rely more on allied Shia militia to preserve their sway in the war-ravaged country, according to these sources. 

On January 20, an Israeli strike killed five IRGC officers in Damascus.

Tensions escalated further after three American soldiers were killed and dozens more were injured in a drone attack by Iran-backed militants on a US outpost in Jordan.