The sources told Reuters that the adviser, known as Sayyed Razi Mousavi, was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.

“I won’t comment on foreign reports, these or others in the Middle East,” IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in response to a reporter’s question at a nightly press conference. “The Israeli military obviously has a job to protect the security interests of Israel.”

Iran’s state television interrupted its regular news broadcast to announce that Mousavi had been killed, describing him as one of the Guards’ oldest advisers in Syria.

It said he had been “among those accompanying Qassem Soleimani”, the head of the Guards’ elite Quds Force who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in Iraq in 2020.

Iran’s ambassador in Damascus Hossein Akbari told Iranian state TV that Mousavi was posted at the embassy as a diplomat and was killed by Israeli missiles after returning home from work.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said the assassination of Mousavi showed weakness on the part of Israel.

“This act is a sign of the Zionist regime’s frustration and weakness in the region for which it will certainly pay the price,” Iranian media cited Raisi as saying.

The Revolutionary Guards said Israel would suffer for killing Mousavi, who held the Guards’ rank of brigadier-general.

“The usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime,” the Guards said in a statement read on state TV.