File photo of General Sayyed Razi Mousavi and the former Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. Fox News/Reuters.
Israel has killed a senior Iranian general who served as an advisor in Syria. Fox News. General Sayyed Razi Mousavi was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Iran and Syria. Iran said Mousavi was killed by an Israeli missile as he was returning home from work. Iran condemned the attack and said Israel will suffer consequences for the attack. Israel has attacked Iranian forces in Syria before but this was the highest profile target they have hit since the beginning of the war with Gaza.
My Comment:
This is a fairly major attack as General Mousavi was a fairly high ranking person in the Iranian command. His role as coordinating the military alliance between Iran and Syria is a huge one and his death will make that a lot more difficult.
Still, it's not like Israel doesn't regularly hit targets in Syria. They have often killed Iran backed militants and soldiers working for Iran. They have been doing that for years, ever since the war in Syria began. Seeing this kind of attack is not surprising at all. It's the nature of the target that is somewhat surprising.
Indeed, this kind of seems like the kind of thing that Iran will respond to. They did attempt to attack US forces in Iraq after General Soleimani was killed in an American airstrike. Mousavi wasn't as high profile as that but I could see some kind of response being launched against Israel because they killed him.
Of course, Mousavi would probably have been the one to coordinate a response and since he is dead it will be slightly more difficult. Whoever his replacement will be might not be as competent or useful as Mousavi was. I guess it's also possible that Mousavi was kicked upstairs and was not really competent, but my guess is that whoever replaces him won't be as good.
Given that Hezbollah involvement in the Gaza conflict is already increasing I am guessing that any response from Iran will probably come from Syria itself. I would not be surprised if we see some missile and drone attacks coming from Syria in the future. I doubt we will see an attack from Iran directly, that would be a huge escalation and one that doesn't seem justified on the Iranians part.
To be fair though, I don't think any revenge attacks from Syria will be that bad. The militias in Syria and Iraq kinda of blew their weapons attacking US bases in each country. Those attacks were pretty bad but did not accomplish much and I don't know if Iran is making those militias a priority when the Houthis in Syria are offering them a lot more bang for their buck.
Indeed, the Houthis have hurt Israel's economy by forcing their shipping to route around the Cape of Good Hope instead of the Red Sea. That's doing a lot more damage than a few drone and missile attacks from Syria ever could. Perhaps that is where the revenge for this killing will be?
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