Israeli air strike destroys Iranian consulate in Syria

An Israeli strike has destroyed the Iranian consulate building in Syria's capital, Damascus, killing and wounding several people, Syrian authorities say.

A senior Revolutionary Guards commander Brig-Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi was among the dead, Iranian state media reported.

Pictures showed smoke and dust rising from the multi-storey building, which was next to the Iranian embassy on a highway in the western Mezzeh district.

The Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign media reports.

The Syrian defence ministry said Israeli aircraft targeted the consulate building from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights at about 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT).

Syrian air defences shot down some of the missiles they launched, but other missiles made it through and "destroyed the entire building, killing and injuring everyone inside", the ministry added.

The ministry said work was under way to recover the bodies and rescue the wounded from underneath the rubble, without giving any information about their identities.

Iranian state TV reported that those killed included Brig-Gen Zahedi, whom it identified as a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations arm, the Quds Force. Several diplomats were among the dead, state TV said.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that the 63-year-old was "active in the Quds Force" from 2008 to 2016 and served as commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria and Lebanon.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that eight people were killed - a high-ranking leader of the Quds Force, two Iranian advisers and five members of the Revolutionary Guards.

Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on Iranian-linked targets in Syria in the past few years, but very rarely acknowledges the strikes.