Recently, Israel has carried out airstrikes on a wide-scale across Syrian government territory, hitting targets of both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah. The most prominent of these strikes came yesterday with the hit on the area of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. This strike most notably killed General Muhammad Reza Zahedi (al-Hajj Abu Mahdi), who has been described as the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. In the Syrian context, this meant that he served as the overall IRGC head of the Local Defence Forces (LDF) network. This network, also known as the ‘Forces of the Friends’ (Quwat al-Asdiqa’) is the project of Syrian groups backed and commanded by IRGC and Hezbollah personnel in coordination with the Syrian military.
Prior to this, an earlier airstrike incident was reported on 26 March in the Albukamal area in Dayr al-Zur province on the border with Iraq. While the strike was initially reported in local media as carried out by the Americans, there is no reason to think that is actually the case. The Americans, after all, were at the time (and still are as of now) in a state of ceasefire with the Iranians and Iranian-backed groups. It thus makes little sense for the Americans to have carried out the airstrike, and it is surely Israel that is responsible for it.
What is notable is that the airstrike hit Brigade/Regiment 47, an IRGC-backed Syrian unit stationed in the region. This led to the killing of IRGC officer ‘al-Hajj Rasul’, who worked with Brigade/Regiment and is pictured below.
Finally, an Israeli airstrike in the Aleppo area on 29 March targeted positions of Hezbollah’s elite Ridwan Force (specifically in the Kafr Jum area in Aleppo countryside, part of the wider network of the ‘Sayyida Ruqayya base’), hitting both Lebanese personnel and Syrians working with the Ridwan Force. The most notable Hezbollah casualty, depicted below, was Ahmad Jawad Shahimi, born in 1964 and originally from the locality of Markaba in south Lebanon.
I also identify at least three Syrian fighters who were killed in this incident. All three of them were working with the Ridwan Force. They are as follows:
Name: Mahmud Rashid Hasun
Year of birth: 2002
Origin: Aleppo city, al-Salihin neighbourhood.
Affiliation: Ali Zayn al-Abidin Brigade (Syrian LDF unit that works with the Ridwan Force)
Battles he participated in: Khan Tuman, Qarasi village.
Name: Mahmud Ali al-Saqa
Year of birth: 2002
Origin: Aleppo city, al-Zahara Association
Affiliation: LDF attached to Ridwan Force (working in personnel documentation role).
Battles he participated in: al-Shaykh Ahmad (Aleppo province), Saraqeb (Idlib province).
Name: Ahmad Bakri Qasas
Year of birth: 2002
Origin: Aleppo city, Bustan al-Qasr
Affiliation: LDF attached to Ridwan Force, working in information department.
Battles he participated in: Qarasi, Khan Touman, Saraqeb
It remains to be seen how Iran and Hezbollah will respond, but there is no doubt that their positions and senior personnel in Syria are easily exposed to Israeli strikes, as shown by this overview of recent hits.
