Iran admits to 400 funerals for Syria fighters

The Daily Star - Iran has acknowledged the deaths of at least 400 militia fighters in Syria, according to information posted on the country’s official news agency.

The IRNA agency didn’t issue a report on the latest casualty figure, but noted in a photo caption that the country has held 400 funerals for “martyred defenders of the Sayyida Zeinab shrine” near Damascus.

Iranian officials say that they don’t have regular combat troops operating in Syria, as Tehran’s military presence in Syria is believed to consist of two categories. One is a relatively small number of high-ranking military officers, who act as advisers to Syrian forces, and the other is a large number of Shiite militiamen belonging to a variety of groups, organized by Iran.

The members of these militias include nationals from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other countries.

Iranian officials also stress that the fighters they sponsor are engaged in defending Shiite religious shrines near Damascus, such as Sayyida Zeinab, although they have been widely reported to be involved in fighting from Deraa province in the south to Aleppo in the north.

Earlier this month, media reports said that Iran sent up to 15,000 fighters to Syria in a bid to reverse recent battlefield losses by the Syrian army.

In mid-April, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that it believed more than 3,000 pro-regime foreign fighters – including 700 from Lebanon’s Hezbollah – had been killed in Syria.

Iran has also negotiated with rebel groups to obtain captured military personnel or the bodies of fighters.