Iran Calls For More Military Cooperation After Drone Attack In Syria

People pay condolences to the family of Hyam al-Makhlouf, who died in an attack on the military academy, in Homs, Syria October 6, 2023.
People pay condolences to the family of Hyam al-Makhlouf, who died in an attack on the military academy, in Homs, Syria October 6, 2023.

Iran has condemned adrone attack on a graduation ceremony at a military academy in Syria, the bloodiest strikes against the military in the past decade.

At least 116 people were killed and about 100 injured Thursday when several weaponized drones hit the Homs Military Academy's courtyard where families were gathered with the new officers, minutes after Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas had left. More than 30 women and children were killed in the attack.

There have been no claims of responsibility for the attack, but Syria's defense and foreign ministries blamed what they described as “terrorist groups backed by known international forces” without specifying further, and vowed to respond "with full force".

Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, the military commander serving at the country’s most senior military position, wrote to his Syrian counterpart Abdul Karim Mahmoud Ibrahim and Syria’s Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas to express readiness for closer cooperation with Damascus “in the fight against terrorism.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also held a phone call with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad on Thursday, while President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the attack.

Sunni Islamist groups Tahrir al-Sham and ISIS as well as Islamist militias with close links to Turkey have bases in the region that is announced as the origin of the drone, pundit Ali Sadrzadeh told Iran International.

The United States on Thursday shot down an armed Turkish drone that was operating near its troops in Syria, the Pentagon said, the first time Washington has brought down an aircraft of NATO ally Turkey. Tensions have flared and there have been close calls. In 2019, US troops in northern Syria came under artillery fire from Turkish positions.

A Turkish defense ministry official said the drone that was shot down did not belong to the Turkish armed forces but did not say whose property it was. According to Turkish security source, Turkey's National Intelligence Agency carried out strikes in Syria against Kurdish militant targets after a bomb attack in Ankara last weekend.