The launch of an Iranian Emad intermediate-range ballistic missile. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Iran fired ground-to-ground missiles into eastern Syria on Sunday, allegedly targeting Islamic State terrorists and marking a significant escalation in the Syrian Civil War.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Sunday its targeting of the Islamic State in Syria was in response to the terror group’s June 7 attacks on the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran, which left 18 dead.

The Iranian strike targeted the “headquarters and gathering centers of Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

The IRGC also said the missile strike killed a “large number” of terrorists and destroyed their supplies, warning it would launch similar assaults in Syria if additional Islamic State attacks occurred in Iran.

The weapons used in the Iranian strike were Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles, which have a range of 800 miles, Israel’s Channel 10 reported.

This strike marks the first time Iran has fired missiles as an act of war since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.