Iran said on Tuesday that seven of its soldiers were killed in a suspected Israeli air strike on a military air base in Syria, making it one of the deadliest strikes on Iranian forces by the Jewish state.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, told Iranian state television that the attack on the T4 military base in Homs province on Monday was a plot by “Americans and Zionists” to overshadow the Syrian regime’s recent “victories”.
Mr Velayati, who was visiting Damascus, was also quoted by Al-Mayadeen, a Lebanese television stations close to Iran, as saying the Israeli attack “will not remain unanswered”.