Beirut: Iran is sending commanders from its elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and hundreds of foot soldiers to Syria, according to current and former members of the corps.
The personnel moves come on top of what these people say are Tehran’s stepped-up efforts to aid the military of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad with cash and arms. That would indicate that regional capitals are being drawn deeper into Syria’s conflict, and undergird a growing perception among Al Assad’s opponents that the regime’s military is increasingly strained.
A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, appeared to offer Iran’s first open acknowledgment of its military involvement in Syria.
“Today we are involved in fighting every aspect of a war, a military one in Syria and a cultural one as well,” General Salar Abnoush, commander of IRGC’s Saheb Al Amr unit, told volunteer trainees in a speech Monday. The comments, reported by the Daneshjoo news agency, which is run by regime-aligned students, couldn’t be independently verified. Top Iranian officials had previously said the country isn’t involved in the conflict.
“One of Iran’s wings will be broken if [Al] Assad falls. They are now using all their contacts from Iraq to Lebanon to keep him in power,” Mohsen Sazegara, a founding IRGC member who now opposes the Iranian regime and lives in exile in the US, said by telephone.
On Thursday, Iran’s defence minister publicly signalled a shift. If Syria fails to put down the uprising, Iran would send military help based on a mutual defence agreement between the two countries, two Iranian newspapers quoted Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying. Syria hadn’t asked for assistance yet, he added.
“Syria is managing this situation very well on its own,” he said. “But if the government can’t resolve the crisis on its own, then based on their request we will fulfil our mutual defence-security pact.”
In Tehran, Syrian National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar met Monday with several Iranian officials and expressed Syria’s gratitude. “The people of Syria will never forget the support of Iran during these difficult times,” Haidar said, according to Iranian media.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word in all state matters, has appointed Qasim Solaimani, the commander of the elite Quds Forces, to spearhead military cooperation with Al Assad and his forces, according to an IRGC member in Tehran with knowledge about deployments to Syria.
“Solaimani has convinced Khamenei that Iran’s borders extend beyond geographic frontiers, and fighting for Syria is an integral part of keeping the Shiite Crescent intact,” said the IRGC member in Tehran. The so-called Crescent, which came together after Saddam Hussain’s fall, includes Shiites from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
Iran is now sending hundreds of rank-and-file members of the IRGC and the basij, a plainclothes volunteer militia answering to the guards-to Damascus, said two people in the IRGC familiar with the movements.
Iran is also deploying IRGC commanders to guide Syrian forces in battle strategy and Quds commanders to help with military intelligence, Sazegara and the current IRGC members said.
