Iranian military leader is 'killed' alongside five others as building next to embassy in Damascus is destroyed in missile attack - as state media accuses Israel of being behind airstrike

A building next to Iran's embassy in Damascus has been destroyed in an airstrike, reportedly killing a senior commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and five others - with state media saying Israel was behind the attack.

Pictures show the building in Syria's capital razed to the ground, with huge plumes of smoke rising from the site following the explosion this afternoon and emergency workers rushing to the scene.

IRGC leader Mohammed Reza Zahedi was killed in the attack, security sources have reported. A war monitor has reported that six people were killed in the building.

Syria's official news agency SANA said 'the Israeli attack targeted the Iranian consulate building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus'.

The state news agency said that the building, an annex next to the embassy, had suffered major destruction and neighbouring buildings in the upmarket area of the city were also damaged. 

There was no immediate comment on today's attack from Israel, which has stepped up strikes on Iran-linked militant groups as its war against Hamas in Gaza rages on.

An Israeli military spokesperson said: 'We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.' Syria's foreign ministry has reportedly condemned the attack.

Iranian media reported that the strikes in Damascus completely destroyed the annex building, and that the ambassador was unharmed.

'Hossein Akbari, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, and his family were not harmed in the Israeli attack,' Iran's Nour news agency said.

Britain-based group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 'Israeli missiles... destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy... in Damascus, killing six people'.

Syria's official SANA news agency earlier reported that 'our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus'.

The incident came days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, said the monitor.

Since the Iranian-backed Palestinian faction Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, Israel has ramped up airstrikes in Syria against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both of which support the government of President Bashar al-Assad.