BEIRUT, January 29. /TASS/. Several civilians were killed and wounded in an Israeli air force strike on the southern outskirts of Damascus, a spokesman for the Arab republic's Armed Forces Command said in a statement reported by the SANA news agency.
"The aggressive attack by Israel was carried out at 1:00 p.m. (10:00 GMT)," the message reads. "The Zionist enemy launched strikes from the occupied Golan Heights on a number of points south of Damascus." The statement stresses that "the attack killed and wounded several civilians and caused property damage as well."
Iran's Tasnim news agency earlier reported two dead, without specifying whether they were military or civilians. For its part, the Al Hadath TV channel said the dead included five Shiite fighters and two Syrians who were accompanying officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC, the elite units of Iran's Armed Forces) Quds Force.
Al Hadath noted that the strikes targeted two farms on the outskirts of the Sayyidah Zaynab suburb, which are used by Iran's military advisers.
On December 25, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Syrian capital killed Iranian General Razi Mousavi who headed the IRGC’s group of military advisers in Syria. On January 20, another strike by the Israeli Air Force hit a residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus, killing General Yousef Omidzadeh who led an intelligence unit in the Quds Force. The Iranian leadership vowed to take revenge on Israel for killing its two military commanders.