Israeli airstrikes near Aleppo, Syria, in the early hours of Monday killed a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps who had been deployed to the country as an adviser, according to Iranian media reports.
The Iranian was identified as Gen. Saeed Abyar by Tasnim News agency, a media outlet affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards. He was believed to be the first Iranian killed by Israel since the two countries nearly went to war in April, after Israel bombed Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus, killing several commanders.
Iran retaliated, attacking Israel with a barrage of 300 drones and ballistic missiles, after which Israel attacked an Iranian military base with a missile.
Since then, however, the two countries stepped back from direct confrontations, facing intense international pressure to not ignite a new, wider regional war. And Iran is now enmeshed in a domestic leadership crisis, making a new wave of attacks on Israel seem unlikely.
Iran has been reeling from the sudden death of its president, Ebrahim Raisi, and its foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, two weeks ago in a helicopter crash. The country is also preparing for a presidential election on June 28 in which more than 80 candidates, representing a wide array of political factions, have registered as candidates.
Tasnim published a photograph of General Abyar, clad in black and standing at a Shiite shrine. His coffin, draped in the Iranian flag with his photograph attached, was taken to the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus, photographs on social media showed.
General Abyar was a member of Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards that operates largely in other countries. He had been in Syria since 2012, when he was deployed to help the government in Damascus fight a civil war with opposition forces and Islamic State terrorists.
The Quds Force now uses Syria as a regional headquarters for coordinating and arming the regional militia groups known as the “axis of resistance,” including in Lebanon, Iraq and the West Bank.
Tasnim reported that Israel attacked several targets on the outskirts of Aleppo overnight on Sunday night and Saturday morning, killing 17 people and injuring 15. The Syria Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, said that among the dead were Iraqis, Syrians and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The target appeared to be a copper factory and a weapons warehouse, the group said.
Iran’s interim foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, a hard-liner with close ties to the regional militia, visited Beirut on Monday. There, he held meetings with senior Lebanese officials and senior members of Hezbollah, according to Iranian media.
Mr. Bagheri said at a news conference in Beirut that Israel was a source of instability in the region and asserted that Iran and the regional militant groups it supports were “a source of stability and peace.”
Mr. Bagheri, who led Iran’s delegation in several rounds of secret talks with the United States in Oman about the war in Gaza and other regional issues, said that Tehran and Washington had continued exchanging messages after Mr. Raisi’s death.
