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IRGC in No Hurry to Avenge Officers Slain by Israel

The December 5 edition of the Iran Media Review examines responses to the recent killing of two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in an Israeli strike.

Ali Alfoneh

As mourners in the city of Qom bid farewell to two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers killed in Syria by an Israeli strike December 2, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson promised such attacks will not go unanswered. On the other hand, Fars News, a mouthpiece of the IRGC, downplayed the significance of Israeli attacks against Iran’s military advisory mission in Syria, which suggests the IRGC is not in a hurry to avenge its officers.

  • December 4: According to Tabnak News, which is close to former IRGC Commander Mohsen Rezaei, while commenting on the Israeli strike, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanani said: “No deed against the national interests and security of Iran as well as our advisory forces in Syria will remain unanswered.”
  • December 4: Fars News downplayed the Israeli threat to Iran’s military presence in Syria:
    • “On December 2, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Public Relations declared in a statement that Dr. Mohammad-Ali Ataei Shourcheh and Engineer Panah Taqizadeh were martyred on a military advisory mission at the hands of the air force of the Zionist regime … Certain circles within Iran and most foreign-based and Western sources have hitherto claimed that the Zionist regime is engaged in serial attacks against Iranian positions in Syria. They even repeat the fictitious ‘200 attacks’ number. Such opinions, however, are far from the reality. The balance of terror between Tehran and Tel Aviv works, and Israel by no means possesses the audacity to intentionally target Iranian forces. Attacks that have taken place were for the most part due to the Zionists’ ignorance of the presence of Iranian forces … or due to poor coordination with middlemen, such as the Russians, which resulted in the martyrdom of Iranian forces.”
    • Quoting Hadi Masoumi Zare, who was presented as an “observer and participant in current battles in West Asia,” Fars wrote: “In most cases, although I cannot know about all cases, the Russians alert Iranian forces, meaning they let Iranians know that Israel is about to engage in attacks. This is what happened in the T4 case,” a 2018 Israeli strike against an IRGC base in Syria that killed seven Iranians, “however, disruption at a certain center unfortunately resulted in the base not being totally evacuated.”
    • Counting 15 Iranian deaths at the hands of the Israeli military since 2015, Fars concluded: “Iran registers the cost imposed on it by Israel, and after each incident, it gets even with the Zionist regime … However, due to the lack of coordination between the relevant institutions and the news media of our country, such deeds remain silent for the most part. These deeds are apparent in the current state of the Israeli regime.”
Ali Alfoneh

is a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is the author of Political Succession in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Demise of the Clergy and the Rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (2020).

The views represented herein are the author’s or speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AGSIW, its staff, or its board of directors.

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