Iran on Saturday again threatened retaliation for the deaths of seven Revolutionary Guards in a strike on Damascus, with the army chief saying his country’s enemies will “regret” the killings, Ednews reports AFP.

Tehran has vowed to avenge Monday’s airstrike on the Syrian capital it blamed on its arch-enemy Israel, which has not commented.

The attack levelled the Iranian embassy’s consular annexe in Damascus, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) members including two generals.

Iran’s response “will be carried out at the right time, with the necessary precision and planning, and with maximum damage to the enemy so that they regret their action,” chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri said on Saturday, according to AFP.

He was speaking at a ceremony in the central city of Isfahan to commemorate Mohammad Reza Zahedi, one of the two dead brigadier generals from the al-Quds force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm.

Zahedi, 63, was the al-Quds force commander for the Palestinian Territories, Syria and Lebanon, according to UK-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He had held several commands during a career spanning more than 40 years, and was the most senior Iranian soldier killed since a US missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed al-Quds force chief Gen Qassem Suleimani.

AFP reports that on Saturday, crowds at the gathering in Isfahan chanted “down with Israel” and “down with the United States”.

The Islamic republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Israel “will be punished” for the killings.

On Friday, IRGC chief Gen Hossein Salami warned that Israel “cannot escape the consequences” of the Damascus strike.