(Illustration) Iranian Revolutionary Guard
(Illustration) Iranian Revolutionary GuardReuters

The alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria this week which killed twelve Hezbollah and Iranian terrorists was not an "accident," a Kuwaiti newspaper reports Thursday - it was a targeted strike carried out after Israel monitored Hezbollah's communications network. 

Israeli intelligence officials knew an hour and a half in advance of the strikes which terrorists were at the attack site and marked them as targets, according to Al-Rai.

Sources also told the daily that "Israel knew very well who was in the motorcade, as they were monitoring [terrorists'] conversations." 

Moreover, they said, Israel's target had always been Iranian general General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi - not Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Imad Mughniyeh who was Hezbollah's former military commander. 

"Israel just thinks it can shirk away from direct responsibility for the strike by informing the public, because there was no military action on Iranian soil, but in Syria," they insisted. "But the prevailing opinion in Tehran is that Iran clearly understood the message, and that no one takes Israel's failure to claim responsibility seriously." 

Exclusive information received by the newspaper show that Allahdadi's role was to assess Hezbollah's military missions in Syria, which is the epicenter of an Islamic holy war between a multitude of factions and rebel groups. 

Allahdadi's visit to Quneitra was not his first tour of the Golan region, the sources said, and he moved constantly between various border outposts.

More than an hour and a half before the assassination, he left Damascus for Quneitra, the paper added. Israeli intelligence moved quickly to establish who was in his convoy during the short journey and quickly ordered his assassination during that time, it said.