IRGC Says Military Advisor Killed In Israeli Attack Near Damascus

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that one of their military advisers was killed in an Israeli attack on the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday.

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has announced the martyrdom of guardsman Milad Haydari, one of the IRGC's military advisers and officers, in the criminal attack of the Zionist regime on the outskirts of Damascus at dawn today," the media quoted an IRGC statement, which also threatened revenge.

Israel carried out an air strike near the Syrian capital early Friday the second attack near Damascus in the last two days.

Citing a military source, state media reported that Israel fired "sprays of missiles" just after midnight.

"Syrian air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down a number of them," the source said, saying the attack caused some material damage. There are no reports about casualties from independent sources.

The source said the attack hit "a site in the Damascus countryside" but did not provide further details.

There was no immediate statement from Israel, which usually declines to comment on reports of strikes in Syria.

Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that began in 2011.

Iranian-backed groups, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Iraqi paramilitary groups have entrenched positions around the capital and in the country's north, east and south. Israel has been regularly attacking targets in and around Damascus airport and suburbs.

There have been at least six strikes in March alone, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor with sources on the ground.