There was no official confirmation in Tehran of the deaths.
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The commander of the Revolutionary Guards´ foreign wing, Major General Qassem Soleimani, is said to be heavily involved in guiding military strategy.
Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah militia, meanwhile, lost two senior commanders in Syria’s Hama province last week.
The Syrian head of state, for his part, expressed gratitude for Tehran’s “constructive role” in his country’s fight against terrorism, saying the new anti-terror coalition comprising Iran, Russia, Syria and Iraq would be “our ace in the hole” during battles against terrorists in the region.
“The rebels have suffered several reversals to IS in northern Aleppo and are caught between IS and the forces of the regime”, said Maamun al-Khatib, editor of the rebel Shabha news agency in Aleppo.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian warplanes conducted at least 15 airstrikes on the edge of the rebel-held town of Talbiseh and nearby areas killing 10 people including six opposition fighters. A regional official who has knowledge of operational details in Syria told The Associated Press on Wednesday about 1,500 Iranian revolutionary guards have arrived in Syria in the past two weeks, taking advantage of Russian air cover. The Syrian conflict has cost the lives of more senior Iranian guards than any other conflict apart from the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Clearly, reaching out to Iran on Syria and other regional crises is a prudent step by the West, given Iran’s regional clout and geostrategic position, particularly by the refugee-hit Europeans who can no longer afford to de-prioritize the Syrian crisis.
“I would like to see Iran using its influence to bring the Syrian government to the negotiating table, in order to discuss the beginning of the political transition process”, Steinmeier said in an interview published on Saturday.
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Qatar-backed London daily, Al-Arabi al-Jadid , also alleged Iranian troops in Syria, though it says many of them are actually Afghans living in eastern Iran, having been displaced by the Afghanistan wars.
