Israel, US on alert for possible retaliatory strike by Iran

Teheran vows to avenge Israel's killing of senior officers in Syria

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Iran vowed on April 5 to avenge Israel's killing of senior commanders and other officers of its elite Quds Force at a public funeral held for the dead men, elevating fears of open war but leaving unsaid how it would retaliate or when.

US officials in Washington and the Middle East said on April 5 that they were bracing themselves for possible Iranian retaliation for the Israeli air strike on April 1 in Damascus, Syria.

"We're definitely at a high state of vigilance," a US official said in confirming a CNN report saying an attack could come this week.

US military forces in the region have been placed on heightened alert.

According to an Israeli official, the military is on high alert, leave has been cancelled for combat units, some reservists have been recalled to air defence units and Global Positioning System signals have been blocked.

Two Iranian officials, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said their country had placed all its armed forces on full high alert and that a decision had been made that Teheran must respond directly to the Damascus attack to create deterrence.

"Our brave men will punish the Zionist regime," General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the crowd in Teheran attending the funeral of the officers killed.

"We warn that no act by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered, and the art of the Iranian nation is to break the power of empires."