Another Iranian Commander Downed Over Weekend

Less than two days after the assassination of Iran’s nuclear program chief, the Islamic Republic on Sunday reportedly suffered another major blow when a top commander of its Revolutionary Guards was killed at the Iraq-Syria border. The incident, which was only revealed by Iraqi security officials on Monday night, occurred when a vehicle carrying weapons across the border was hit by a drone strike, killing the military chief and three other men in the car with him. Reuters reported that Iraqi paramilitary groups that are allied with Iranian forces helped retrieve the bodies, but the exact identity of the commander could not be ascertained by the news agency. In January, Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani was killed by an American drone strike on Baghdad airport. On Friday, the country’s senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down in his car in Tehran, in what authorities claim was an Israeli job. The nation’s leaders vowed to avenge Fakhrizadeh’s death.