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Iran Update, April 1, 2024

Israel killed one of Iran's senior-most military commanders in Syria in an airstrike on April 1.[1] Israel struck a building directly adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi and some of his top subordinates.[2] Zahedi was a highly influential and well-connected individual within the Iranian security establishment, having held several key positions throughout his career.[3] Zahedi most recently commanded the IRGC Quds Force unit responsible for overseeing operations in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories.[4] Zahedi almost certainly therefore played a prominent role in managing how Iran and its so-called “Axis of Resistance” have escalated against the United States and Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began. Zahedi beforehand commanded the IRGC’s ground and air services and served as the operations deputy at the IRGC’s joint staff.[5] He was also part of an extraordinarily influential and tightly knit circle of senior IRGC officers who met one another during the Iran-Iraq War and have periodically come together in the intervening decades to interfere in Iranian domestic politics.[6] Other members of this informal fraternity include Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who the United States killed in January 2020, and his successor and current Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani.

Israel targeted Zahedi as part of an air campaign that it has conducted to disrupt the Iranian transfer of military materiel to its proxies and partners in Lebanon and Syria.[7] Israel has conducted several strikes targeting Iranian and Iranian-backed positions in Syria in recent months to this end, including killing IRGC Brig. Gen. Razi Mousavi outside Damascus in December 2023.[8] Mousavi was one of Zahedi’s subordinates and responsible for moving military assets and equipment through Syria. Zahedi is now the senior-most Iranian officer that Israel has killed in its air campaign.

Iran and its Axis of Resistance may attack US and/or Israeli targets in the coming weeks in retaliation for the killing of Zahedi. The Iranian regime has vowed publicly to avenge Zahedi and is creating a domestic expectation that it will take some dramatic action.[9] Iranian state media celebrated Zahedi’s prominence in the Axis of Resistance, publishing photos of him standing next to Qassem Soleimani and Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.[10] Iranian state media also emphasized that the April 1 Israeli airstrike hit a building that was part of the Iranian embassy and argued that the airstrike thus constitutes an attack on Iranian territory.[11] Iranian and Iranian-backed forces could time part of their retaliation around Quds Day, which is the annual anti-Israel holiday that Iran and its Axis of Resistance promote, on April 5.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-april-1-2024