A drone strike has killed a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards along with three other officers in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, Reuters reported citing Iraqi officials and local militia officials.
The commander, identified as Muslim Shahdan, was reportedly hit by a targeted drone strike while he was traveling in a vehicle, along with the other victims, across the Iraq border with Syria.
The vehicle, which was carrying weapons, was struck when it entered into the Syrian territory, Al Arabiya wrote citing two Iraqi security officials.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said he had not heard about the assault, but that if such a strike had occurred, the General Staff of the Armed Forces’ spokesperson would have to comment.
The killings come days after the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in the north of Tehran. Iran has blamed Israel for the killing.
Fakhrizadeh was head of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, a government-funded organization specialized in the research and development of nuclear weapons.
Last January, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Guards’ Quds Force, was assassinated by an American drone attack approved by the US President Donald Trump.