Iran’s Quds Force denies deaths in Israeli airstrikes in Syria
The Afghan Fatemiyoun also denied members were hit, but said Syrian army personnel were killed.
A deputy commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denied that any deaths had resulted from a string of airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Israel in Syria earlier this week.
“The attacks left no human casualties,” Ahmad Karimkhani told Iran’s state Fars News Agency on Thursday. “Despite their fake propaganda, the Zionists do not dare to attack the Iranian and resistance groups’ centers and positions in Syria,” he added.
Suspected Israeli airstrikes hit multiple locations in and around the cities of Deir ez-Zor, Mayadeen and Abu Kamal in eastern Syria in territory occupied by IRGC-backed forces supporting Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
Reports of deaths varied. Omar Abu Layla, who runs an activist network in Deir Ez-Zor, told reporters that no more than 40 had been killed. The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 57 had been killed, including more than a dozen Syrian army personnel. Most killed were from Iran-backed Shiite militias, the observatory reported.
