AN ISREALI strike on Damascus Saturday killed at least 10 people, a war monitor said giving a new toll, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Syria spy chief and his deputy.
“The death toll rose from six to 10 after bodies that were still trapped under the rubble had been recovered,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria said the targeted neighbourhood is known to be a high-security zone home to leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and pro-Iran Palestinian factions.
“They were for sure targeting senior members” of those groups, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
The mid-morning strike, which caused a large plume of smoke to billow into the sky, was also reported by Syrian state media.
“An attack targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus, resulting from an Israeli aggression,” the official SANA news agency reported. It did not say if there were any casualties.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the destroyed building was cordoned off with ambulances, firefighters and Syrian Arab Red Crescent rescue teams all present at the site.
Civil defence were busy searching for survivors under the rubble of the totally collapsed building, he said.
The Mazzeh area is also home to the United Nations’ headquarters, embassies and restaurants.
“I heard the explosion clearly in the western Mazzeh area, and I saw a large cloud of smoke,” a resident told AFP.
“The sound was similar to a missile explosion, and minutes later I heard the sound of ambulances,” he added.
