Firmly Reminds Israel Not To Target Its Troops, Iranian Commander: If Repeated, You Suffer Our Missile Strikes

Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps General Hossein Salami. (Wikimedia Commons/Mehr News Agenc/Mahmoud Rahimi)

JAKARTA - Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) warned Israel on Wednesday it would face retaliatory attacks if it continued to target members of the elite force, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

"Be aware that we will not only take part in the funerals of our martyrs but also immediately take their revenge. This is a real and serious message", Tasnim quoted Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami as warning Israel.

"If your misbehavior is repeated, you will once again suffer our attacks and suffer the bitter taste of our missile strikes", he stressed.

The IRGC, or Revolutionary Guard, claimed responsibility for the March 13 attack on what they called Israel's "strategic center" in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

A dozen missiles, launched from Iran, hit what Iraq's Kurdish regional government described as 'civilian residential areas.

The attack was seen as Iran's retaliation for Israel's killing of members of the Syrian Revolutionary Guards, a close ally of Iran, in an airstrike on March 7.

"In the last few weeks, you have seen how the Zionists have always been wrong in their calculations and have been targeted by Revolutionary Guard missiles. We warned them that they must stop their destruction or we will bury them alive", Salami added.

Separately, monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shortly after the March 7 Israeli airstrike, it was the seventh of its kind in Syria this year and the target was a weapon and ammunition depot near Damascus airport.

For your information, Israel rarely comments on airstrikes in Syria, which have been carried out by hundreds since the start of the country's civil war in 2011.