TEHRAN, Iran

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards CORPS (IRGC) said Sunday another military adviser died of his wounds from Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

Meghdad Mehghani's death took the number of IRGC members killed in Friday's Israeli attacks in the suburbs of Damascus to two.

Milad Heydari, 32, who was also identified as a military adviser, was declared dead immediately after the strikes.

In a statement on Sunday, the IRGC's public relations division said Mehghani died of "the severity of injuries" he sustained in the "criminal attack" by the Israeli forces.

The IRGC said the "crimes" of killing IRGC officers "will not go unanswered".

The statement said Heydari will be buried in the city of Hamedan and Mehghani will be laid to rest in Golestan after public funeral ceremonies on Wednesday.

Syrian media said the country's air defenses ''confronted hostile targets'' on Friday, adding that some of the missiles were shot down.

UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the strikes targeted arms depots used by Syrian government forces and Iran-linked groups south of Damascus.

Meanwhile, fresh airstrikes were reported early on Sunday targeting several sites in Syria's Homs province, wounding five soldiers, Syrian state media reported.

It said the country's air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down some of them.

There has been no report yet about any Iranian casualty in Sunday's attack.

The fresh attacks marked the ninth time Israel has targeted positions in the Arab country since the start of the year and the third time in last one week, according to SOHR.

Israel rarely comments on its military operations in Syria but has on several occasions confirmed strikes on Iran-linked groups in the Arab country.

In November 2022, a senior IRGC officer was killed in a roadside bomb explosion on the outskirts of Damascus. The IRGC at the time blamed Israel for carrying out the attack and vowed a response.

Before that, in March 2022, two IRGC officers were killed in an airstrike on the outskirts of Damascus, which was followed by Iran targeting what it called "Israeli facilities" in Erbil in northern Iraq.

Iran, which supports Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, maintains a military presence in the country, which often comes under US and Israeli airstrikes.