He made the unusual request in a meeting with Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Rokna-badi, a day after the Pasdar commander said Pasdar forces were in neighboring Syria helping President Bashar al-Assad battle an 18-month-old uprising.
Roknabadi denied media reports that the Pasdaran had also sent forces to Lebanon, but the president nonetheless asked the Iranian authorities for an official clarification as to whether any Pasdaran remain in Lebanon, Suleiman’s office said.
Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite militia and political group backed by Syria and Iran, was established with Pasdar help after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Pasdar troops installed themselves in the town of Baalbek in the Bekaa valley.
Some anti-Iranian politicians say Iranian forces remain in Lebanon, but no such military presence has been proven.
The Pasdar troops in Lebanon were never believed to have exceeded a thousand men in the 1980s and to have fallen to dozens in the 1990s.
