On Tuesday, Iran denied reports that said a senior commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in an airstrike near the Iraq-Syria border.
“We have not received any report in this regard, and it seems more like media propaganda,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, told Iranian media. Khatibzadeh added that questions about the alleged incident should be directed to Iran’s military.
Iraqi sources told several Arab news outlets on Monday that Muslim Shahdan, a senior IRGC commander, was killed in a drone strike in a vehicle that entered Syria from Iraq either late Saturday or early Sunday morning. Other reports said the IRGC official could not be identified, but all accounts say three other people were killed in the same event.
The reports did not say who was behind the alleged strike, but a drone attack in eastern Syria could be carried out by Israel or the US. Israeli airstrikes inside Syria against what they deem are Iranian-linked targets have stepped up in recent weeks. The strikes usually target Shia militia members.
If the reports turn out to be true, the killing of an IRGC commander would be another major escalation in the region that happened just days after an Iranian scientist was killed in an apparent Israeli plot.