TEHRAN, April 13, 2024 (AFP) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed early Sunday that a drone and missile attack was under way against Israel in retaliation for a deadly April 1 drone strike on its Damascus consulate.
“In response to the numerous crimes committed by the Zionist regime, including the attack on the consular section… the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired dozens of missiles and drones at specific targets inside the occupied territories (Israel),” state television quoted a Guards statement as saying.
Operation Honest Promise is “being carried out with the approval of the Supreme National Security Council under the supervision of the General Staff of the Armed Forces,” the Guards statement said.
Within minutes of the launch, the account on X of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reposted his pledge that the “evil (Israeli) regime will be punished”.
Almost an hour after the drones were launched, the Guards fired a “first batch of ballistic missiles at targets deep in the occupied territories (Israel),” the official IRNA news agency said.
The April 1 strike, which was widely blamed on Israel, levelled the five-storey consular annexe of the Iranian embassy in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
In Tehran, hundreds of Iranians gathered in Palestine Square, carrying the Iranian flag and that of Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah.
“Death to Israel” and “Hezbollah, Hezbollah” the crowds chanted while others held banners saying “God’s victory is near!”
In the southern city of Kerman, crowds gathered near the grave of Guards general Qasem Soleimani, chanting “death to Israel,” according to ISNA news agency.
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020.
Demonstrations also broke out in other cities including Qom, south of Tehran.
