Islamic State militants captured a string of villages near Aleppo on Friday in a lightning attack that brought them closer to the prized city in northern Syria, despite a major increase in Russian airstrikes that Moscow insists are targeting the extremists.
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An Iranian state television report said he was killed while “carrying out an advisory mission”, and the official IRNA news agency read a statement by the Guard in which it blamed IS for his death.
CIA-backed rebels in Syria, who had begun to put serious pressure on President Bashar Assad’s forces, are now under Russian bombardment with little prospect of rescue by their American patrons, USA officials say.
“We want help from our friends, and this is what Iran is offering, and what Russian Federation is offering”, he said, hailing Russia’s recent initiative to form a coalition between Russian Federation, Syria and Iran.
The ground operation will eventually include new contingents of fighters from Hezbollah, a Shiite militia, as well as the current configuration of Syrian forces backed by Russians in the air, according to the official with the alliance. IS-affiliated accounts on Twitter also announced the militants had seized those villages. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the IS group.
Other activists wondered where the Americans were.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation diplomatic sources said Moscow had given no advance warning of the missile strikes which came as a complete surprise.
The Observatory said IS seized the villages of Tal Qrah, Kfar Qares and at least four other small villages in the northern Aleppo countryside.
The jihadists are now just over 10 kilometres (six miles) from the northern edges of the city and three kilometres from pro-regime forces in the Sheikh Najjar industrial zone.
About 200 insurgents were killed in an attack on the Liwa al-Haqq group in Raqqa province while 100 died in Aleppo the defence ministry said.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Friday Washington would stop recruiting new fighters for its train-and-equip programme and would instead “provide equipment packages and weapons to a select group of vetted leaders and their units” already on the ground.
It was not clear whether Hamedani’s killing was related to that IS offensive.
The British-based Observatory said it was the biggest advance by Islamic State since it launched an offensive against rival rebels in Aleppo near the Turkish border in late August.
The Guards said General Hamedani was killed on Thursday night and that he had “played an important role… reinforcing the front of Islamic resistance against the terrorists”.
Gen. Hossein Hamedani, a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was killed by ISIS extremists.
Senior Iranian officials have been in Syria for several years as military advisers. Iran is majority Shiite.
An Iranian official said Hamedani was a close ally of the head of the Quds Force, which is an overseas arm of the IRGC.
The death of a top Iranian military commander in Syria this week has dealt a “psychological blow” to elements backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to a USA intelligence official.
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Guard commanders repeatedly have said Iran only has high-level advisers in Syria, denying it has fighters there. civil war. Those groups have made significant progress against strongholds of the Alawites, Assad’s sect, but are now under Russian bombardment.
