Westerns news reports are saying troops from Iran’s Pasdaran have been dispatched to Syria this month and have now gone into action against rebel groups opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Some stories say “hundreds” of Iranian troops have just arrived in Syria. Others say “thousands.” One specified “two thousand.”
The stories speak of the arrival of Iranian troops as a brand new development this month. However, the Iran Times carried a report in its August 7 issue saying Iran had been sending combat troops to Syria for a full year. That report was based on an analysis by Iranian researcher Ali Alfoneh of obituaries appearing in Iranian newspapers for men described as being killed in Syria.
Alfoneh concluded from the published obituaries that the Pasdaran had first deployed Iranian combat units in Syria no later than July 2014.
Iran has repeatedly denied having any combat troops in Syria, and it repeated the denials last week after the new series of reports. The Islamic Republic has long said that it sends military advisers to Syria to aid the Syrian government, but it has always denied sending combat units.
The US State Department said it could not confirm the presence of Iranian combat units.
The Pasdaran are known to have raised, equipped and trained units comprised of Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis to serve in Syria. The only logical reason for sending Iranians would be a shortage of volunteers from other countries.
Many of the Iraqis sent to Syria returned to Iraq last year when the Islamic State made major advances in Iraq. An officer with one of the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Kitaeb Hezbollah, told The Washington Post this week that his militia had just dispatched 1,000 Iraqis to fight in the Aleppo area of Syria.
Major General Qasem Soleymani, the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, was photographed last week in Syria giving a pep talk to unidentified troops.
Assad’s army has lost ground this year and has trouble finding needed manpower. Assad was reported to be talking about cutting back military operations and forming a citadel around the areas where his Alawite ethnics live.
Soleymani when to Moscow several weeks ago and reportedly lobbied for Russia to get more involved. Russia sent 30 combat aircraft to Syria last month and has been pounding rebels troops to support efforts by Assad’s troops and the groups organized by Iran to re-take lost territory.