TEHRAN - The Israeli regime’s deadly aerial assault on the Syrian capital Damascus was sharply denounced by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

Nasser Kanaani, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, strongly condemned the attacks on targets in Damascus and its outskirts, including residential structures, which have resulted in the deaths and injuries of innocent Syrian citizens.

Citing the timing of recent Israeli bombings and a recent assault on the Syrian people by the Daesh terrorist group, Kanaani noted that the two terrorist groups have natural and inherent linkages and cooperation.

He regretted that the Zionist regime and Daesh are trying to make the suffering of the Syrian people worse at a time when the country is still dealing with the effects of the tragic earthquake that happened on February 6th.

Furthermore, he called on the international community and the relevant organizations, particularly the UN Security Council, to respond swiftly, seriously, and effectively to the Zionist regime’s acts of aggression against a UN member state.

He also repudiated as shameful the Western governments’ passivity regarding the Israeli regime’s ongoing infringement of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Israeli airstrikes on Damascus have resulted in at least five fatalities, 15 injuries, and damage to several residential buildings.

The early Sunday strikes targeted a structure in the Kafr Sousa region of downtown Damascus, which is adjacent to a sizable, well-guarded security complex and Iranian sites, according to Reuters.

Loud explosions were heard on Saturday over a portion of the city’s center. According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Syrian air defenses were “confronting hostile targets in the airspace around Damascus.”

Citing a military source, SANA said that “a number of residential buildings” had also been destroyed in addition to five deaths, one of them was a soldier.

The raids came more than a month after an Israeli missile attack targeted the Damascus International Airport, leaving four people dead, including two military.

Iran describes Western propaganda as “tattered strategy”

Kanaani also slammed the efforts made by the U.S. and its European troika to initiate a propaganda campaign against the Islamic Republic, calling it as “futile and fruitful.”

He added that the anti-Iran action is a “tattered tactic” utilized to disguise their own hurdles at home and abroad.

Kanaani made the remarks in a series of tweets following a meeting among the foreign ministers of U.S., France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on the heels of the 2023 Munich Security Conference (MSC) in the Bavarian capital.

In the meeting, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s nuclear program and its lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Blinken reiterated fabricated worries about purported “human rights violations” in Iran and expanding military ties between Iran and Russia.