Israel Pounds Aleppo In Fresh Attack, Iranian IRGC Casualties Confirmed

Israel launched major airstrikes on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in the overnight hours, which killed an Iranian military adviser, and possibly more Iranian militia members, as well as civilians.

“At approximately 12:20 AM at dawn on Monday, the Israeli enemy launched an aerial attack with missiles from a direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of points in the vicinity of Aleppo city, and the army air defenses intercepted the aggression’s missiles and shot down some of them,” Syrian state SANA said.

“The aggression led to the martyrdom a number of civilians, and some material losses to the property,” the report added.

Hours after the initial overnight and early morning reports of the attack, Iranian state media confirmed the death of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer.

“During last night’s attack by the Zionist regime on Aleppo, Saeed Abyar, one of the IRGC advisers in Syria, was martyred,” confirmed Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

But there are unverified reports that many more were killed. The opposition-linked, anti-Assad war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that 16 members of pro-Iran groups were killed in the attack. The main strike location was reportedly at a copper smelting plant and weapons warehouse in the Aleppo countryside.

SOHR has documented forty-four Israel attacks on Syria in 2024. This includes:

“32 airstrikes and 12 rocket attacks by ground forces, during which Israel targeted several positions in Syria, destroying nearly 92 targets, including buildings, weapons and ammunitions warehouses, headquarters, centres and vehicles. These strikes killed 164 combatants and injured 69 others…”

Days ago, Israel bombed the coastal Syrian city of Baniyas, killing a girl along with ten other civilians, local reports said.

In the initial days and weeks after Oct.7, Syria had lobbed several rockets toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which left no casualties. Much of the Syrian populace has meanwhile become frustrated and expressed growing anger that the Russian military, which has long had a significant presence inside Syria (especially since 2015), has not done more to try and intercept inbound Israeli jets. But Israel often mounts its attacks from over Lebanese airspace.

“Moscow strongly condemns these aggressive actions, which come in gross violation of Syria’s sovereignty and basic rules of international law,” Russia’s foreign ministry announced Monday. “Such use of force, which in the current tense regional situation can lead to extremely dangerous consequences and trigger a large-scale armed escalation, are unacceptable.”

Tensions are soaring especially in the wake of Israel’s April 1st brazen attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus, which left a high ranking IRGC General and several other Iranian officers dead. Additionally, in southern Lebanon Hezbollah has been upping its attacks on Israel in recent days and weeks. Hezbollah is closely allied with Damascus and Tehran.