Iranian media reports say IRGC member Reza Zarei was killed in a suspected Israeli attack in the port city of Baniyas.
A member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and two other people were killed in a suspected Israeli attack, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA said Reza Zarei, a member of the IRGC, had been “murdered today at dawn by the usurping Zionist regime” in the port city of Baniyas.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war observatory corroborated Friday's attack.
He said three explosions rocked the center of Baniyas, on Syria's Mediterranean coast, during the dawn attack on a village housing “an Iran-affiliated group.”
A building was destroyed, killing an Iranian and two other non-Syrians who were with him, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
There were separate reports that several other people were also injured in the attack.
There was no comment from Israel after the attack, but its air force has repeatedly bombed targets in Syria.
On Thursday, Israel killed a Hezbollah member in an attack in Syria near the Lebanese border, the Observatory said, hours after similar attacks.
“Yet another targeted killing in Syria, yet another member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard killed in Syria,” said Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut in Lebanon on Friday.
“The Iranian media is blaming Israel. Israel does not typically comment on individual attacks, but has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes against Iranian targets and targets linked to Iran in recent years.
“But in recent weeks what we have seen are more frequent attacks, similar attacks. In December, for example, one of the top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria was killed in Damascus.”
According to Khodr, Israel has been carrying out raids for years because it does not want Iran to entrench itself militarily in Syria. But since Israel's war against Gaza began on October 7, its strategy has changed.
“He is now pursuing objectives of great value,” said our correspondent.
“Reza Zarei, the man killed in Baniyas, was in charge of Iranian oil shipments to Syria. According to analysts, Israel is targeting these high-value targets to sever the link between the command in Tehran and local actors in Syria affiliated with Iran,” he added.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard has reduced the deployment of its senior officers to Syria due to a series of deadly Israeli attacks and was relying more on allied militias to preserve its dominance there, the Reuters news agency reported in February.
