“The Syrian stage is going through new developments”, said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Iran’s Chairman of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on Saturday upon his arrival in Tehran.
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The United States intelligence official said Washington is of the belief that Iran has been sending its top military advisers and weapons to Syria since 2012. The Iranian-backed group Hezbollah has also sent a fresh wave of fighters to Syria, he told The Associated Press.
The nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers is “an opening for further diplomatic endeavours” to resolve the conflicts in the Middle East, the German foreign minister said in Tehran today.
The official defined those forces as consisting of Iranians including Quds special forces, Iranian-funded proxies and Lebanese Hezbollah, noting it was hard to determine a precise number of fighters.
Lebanon’s Tehran-allied Hizbullah has done much of the fighting to prop up the Syrian army.
“Addressing the religious fascism ruling Iran to answer the call for provision of global security comes on the heels of the regime’s leaders blackmailing the worldwide community by test-firing long range missiles and showing “a deep underground tunnel packed with missiles and launcher units”.
Iran is the main regional ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has provided military and economic support during Syria’s four-year-old civil war. Since the end of September it’s been joined by Russian Federation, which started bombing Islamic State and other opposition groups.
In a 2014 article, The Wall Street Journal said that Hamdani was a “recognized authority and strategist in Iran for fighting separatist movements and guerrilla urban war”.
Their arrival, a regional official and Syrian activists said Wednesday, highlights the far-reaching goals of Russia’s military involvement in Syria.
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“They took advantage of the vacuum”, said Lt. Colonel Ahmed Saoud, commander of 13th Division, a rebel group that is part of the Free Syrian Army. The channel linked his presence to a forthcoming offensive against anti-Assad rebels. The Syrian Arab Army, the Russian Air Force, Hizbullah and a demi-brigade of the IRGC are attempting to clear rebels from the areas north of Hama and extending up to Jisr al-Shaghour, as a way a recovering territory the regime lost to the rebels last spring and through this summer.
