The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says three people have been killed after Israeli strikes targeted Iranian bases and weapon depots on the outskirts of capital Damascus.
The war monitor said on Friday the Israeli surface-to-surface missiles were fired from the Golan heights and that the three killed were officers while four other members of the air defense crews were wounded.
According to the observatory, a fire broke out at one of the Iranian positions near the Damascus airport, where ambulances were seen rushing to the site of the strikes.
Syria's official news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying that the Syrian air defenses intercepted “hostile targets” as "The Israeli enemy carried out an aggression... that led to the death of three martyrs and some material losses".
The observatory claims the Friday strike follows one on May 13 that killed five people in central Syria, and another one near Damascus on April 27 which killed 10 combatants, among them six Syrian soldiers.
Last month, Israel allegedly carried out three strikes in Syria. In March, an Israeli attack over Damascus killed two officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Israel’s military does not usually comment on specific strikes in Syria but has acknowledged that it has conducted hundreds of attacks against forces under Iranian command in Syria to prevent the Islamic Republic from accumulating weapons and entrenching itself further in the war-torn country.
Earlier in the month, The Moscow Times, an independent Dutch-based paper, reported that while Russia has begun pulling out its troops from Syria to bolster forces in Ukraine, Iran forces and Lebanese group Hezbollah have reportedly taken over its bases.
Hamed Esmaeilion, the chief spokesperson for the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, in his opinion piece for Canada’s Globe and Mail Tuesday said that that soccer in Iran is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) which is expected to send members to accompany the Iranian team to Canada for the exhibition game and said it is shocking that Canada Soccer is inviting the Iranian national team.
The invitation, he said, is a “slap in the face of everyone who has been affected by the January 8, 2020 downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752.” The invitation is also “ignorant of the security and safety of Canadians who have been frequently harassed by Iranian security agencies for years, including the families of victims,” he said.
Esmaeilion, a Canadian-Iranian citizen, lost his wife and daughter in the tragedy which claimed the lives of all 176 onboard. “There are many other opponents Canada Soccer can play instead, if they wanted to keep politics out of sports,” Esmaeilion, who has tirelessly campaigned against the Islamic Republic since the tragedy, said.
The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Only hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US and coalition troops in retaliation for the killing of the IRGC Qods Force Commander Ghasem Soleimani who was targeted and killed in Baghdad by a US drone strike just five days earlier.
Iran failed to explain the plane’s destruction for three days and subsequently attributed it to human error. Some of the families of those who died on the flight have contested the claim that human error was responsible.
Hamid Estili, the Iranian national soccer team’s manager, has told Tasnim news agency in Tehran that the Canadian side will be paying $400,000 to the Iranian Football Federation and cover the team’s expenses during their stay. According to Estili the Federation will only have to spend half of the sum paid by Canada Soccer and can save the rest.
Canada’s The Star has polled its readers about the event. The majority of around 13,000 voters to the poll (85%) by Friday said the invitation was an inexcusable decision.
When asked about the issue Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this was a choice by Soccer Canada but added that he thought it wasn’t a good idea to invite the Iranian team. ‘But that's something that the organizers are going to have to explain.”
Following Trudeau’s remarks, Canada Soccer in a brief statement defended its decision, arguing that sports events can bring people from different backgrounds and political beliefs together.
Esmaeilion who is campaigning for the cancellation of the match argues that the Islamic Republic uses such events as a political tool to paint itself in a normal light and divert attention from the suppression of its citizens.
While many have supported Esmaeilion arguments on social media, others say sports and politics should not be mixed.
Abdolreza Davari, a hardliner politician, in a tweet Friday criticized those who object to the soccer match on political grounds and accused them of hypocrisy. “They are the same people who condemned Iran for refusing to compete with Israel at sports events and said sports should be non-political.’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has banned any games with Israeli athletes at international sports events.
Reza Safieddine, Hisham Safieddine’s son, is married to Zeynab Soleimani, the daughter of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard general Ghasem (Qasem) Soleimani who was killed in a US air strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Avikay Edri, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman told Iran International's correspondent on Friday that Reza Safieddine arranges for weapons to be flown from Iran to Damascus on civilian flights and then arranges their transportation and delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
His father who is the number two Hezbollah leader uses his political influence with the Lebanese government to ensure cooperation of officials and presumably security organs for making sure the deliveries are made without any complications.
After the Iranian revolution in 1979 that overthrew the monarchy, the newly established Islamic Republic in the early 1980s created the Lebanese Hezbollah among the country’s Shiites amid lawlessness and civil war (1975-1990). The Hezbollah has been armed and financed by Iran since then as a potent weapon against Israel.
The Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his disciples who have ruled in Iran are sworn enemies of Israel and have many times called for its destruction throughout the years. Iran has armed the Hezbollah with thousands of rockets and missiles threatening Israeli cities that are within the easy range of Shiite-dominated southern Lebanon where Hezbollah freely operates.
Edri also accused Reza Safieddine and the Hezbollah of endangering the lives of civilians by transporting weapons on airliners to Syria, which is a close ally of Iran.
Iran has extensively used its civil aviation to transport weapons and troops to Syria. The Revolutionary Guard controls several Iranian airlines, including one of the biggest Mahan. The United States sanctioned the company in 2011 for its role in the Syrian war.
In November 2020, a senior IRGC official Nosratollah Hosseinipur in a public ceremony had said, “You should know that in troop transportation to Syria it was the wide-body Mahan airliners that saved the day, by landing in Damasuc under enemy fire and disembarking troops.”
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes at targets in Syria since 2017, mostly to destroy Iranian weapons shipments, which presumably also come overland from Iraq. Tehran has had a large military presence in Syria since 2011, when a revolt began against the ruling Assad family.
Israel has made it clear over the past few years that it will not accept Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria, especially near its northern borders in and around the Golan Heights.
Ghasem Soleimani played the main role in Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, dispatching Revolutionary Guard high ranking officers, experts and both Iranian and proxy troops to defend the rule of Bashar Assad. He was Iran’s regional military and intelligence chief, also organizing Iraqi Shiite militias and helping Houthi rebels in Yemen against Saudi Arabia. When attacks against US interests increased in Iraq in the end of 2019, former US president Donald Trump ordered his killing.
An IRGC official in Khuzestan, Colonel Mohammadreza Leilizadeh, said Thursday evening that 65 battalions of male and 28 battalions of female members of the Basij will be participating in the exercises.
A large gathering was also held at the Imam Khomeini tomb complex in Tehran by the IRGC's Sarallah force in Tehran, which is tasked to deal with protests and defend centers of government power in the capital.
Basij is one of the IRGC’s five forces, which partly consists of volunteers who receive military training under IRGC command. Armed Basij militia are often deployed to suppress protesters and have been accused of brutalizing protesters. In the past two weeks protesters have attacked at least two Basij headquarters in three small towns -- Hafshajan, Jouneghan, and Baba Heydar – in in Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari Province.
The militia’s urban exercises come amid a tense security atmosphere and massive internet disruptions in most cities and towns of the oil-rich province where protesters took to the streets two weeks ago over the announcement of a massive hike in food prices. In the past two weeks at least two more protesters have been killed in Khuzestan.
Security forces usually respond to protests with tear gas and excessive force, including lethal force, and arrest protesters even when they are demonstrating peacefully. Social media reports indicate that at least five protesters have been shot dead by security forces in western provinces since May 6.
Leilizadeh said the aim of the exercises is to improve the preparedness of the militia “to carry out real operations in social arenas throughout the region” and “psychological operations commensurate to the current circumstances” as well as “practicing individual combat technics.”
Protests in Khuzestan over water shortage last July lasted for several weeks and spread to other provinces. More than a dozen protesters were shot dead by security forces in these protests.
The recent protests in Khuzestan have also spread to mainly provinces, including Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari where so far three protesters have been shot dead by security forces. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent human rights monitoring agency, reported on May 15 that protests had taken place in at least 19 cities and towns since May 6.
Leilizadeh also pointed out that similar exercises are being held throughout the country.
On Thursday the official news agency (IRNA) reported the commencement of similar exercises in the northwestern Ardabil province. The capital of the province, the city of Ardabil, was also the scene of anti-government protests last week.
Basij militia also held exercises in Golpayegan in the central Esfahan Province where people have also taken to the streets in the past few days to protest.
Security forces have arrested tens of political, civil, and labor activists in the past two weeks including some members of teachers’ unions on alleged charges of having “ties with terrorist groups’ and foreign spies.
“The arrests of prominent members of civil society in Iran on baseless accusations of malicious foreign interference is another desperate attempt to silence support for growing popular social movements in the country,” said Tara Sepehri Far, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of looking to civil society for help in understanding and responding to social problems, Iran’s government treats them as an inherent threat.”