IRAN has accused Israel as the mastermind behind the deadly airstrike in its embassy in Syria and threatened to respond with equal force.
The death toll from an airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus rose to thirteen in the past three days.
Iran and Syria condemned the attack which killed seven Iranian military advisers and six Syrian citizens.
Iran blamed Israel for the deadly airstrike and vowed retaliation.
James Dorsey, a political analyst from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore said that Iran will possibly extract revenge on Israel through its allies to avoid direct confrontation with the United States.
“It’s certainly going to be very well calculated, because while this crosses a red line, Iran does not want an all-out regional war in the Middle East, and it certainly does not want a confrontation with the United States. We saw in the last several hours the United States shoot down a drone in Syria that was targeting a U.S. facility. Now whether that was a response to the attack on the embassy compound or not, we don’t know. But what you could very well see is that the response will come from Iran’s allies rather than from Iran itself. The question is whether that’s going to be U.S. targets of the region. Is it going to be an Israeli diplomatic facility somewhere in the world. That I don’t think anybody knows. But the Iranians will presumably feel pressured to respond one way or another,” James M. Dorsey Senior Fellow, Nanyang Technological University.
Iranian protesters gathered in Tehran on Monday to condemn the Israeli airstrike and urged the government to take a stronger response. The Iranian consulate in Damascus stood for 30 years before the facility crumbled to pieces on Monday.
Iran’s Supreme Leader and its President warned to punish Israel for its actions, amid decades-long tensions between the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state.
Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon and one of Iran’s regional allies, threatened to retaliate and hold the United States accountable for its support of Israel.
