Iran’s Losing Major Operatives in Syria

From Revolutionary Guards generals to Hezbollah commanders, Tehran’s agents are being offed at a rapid rate in a foreign war zone.

With the aid of Russian airstrikes, Iranian-backed foreign fighters, and a combination of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regular and militia forces are on the march. Yet Iran and its proxies have taken some significant high-ranking casualties since the start of their recruitment and deployment drives to Syria.

These losses all serve to map out the current offensive being launched in the northwest of the country, including Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo. While other significant losses had been suffered in past engagements, deaths of key members were often more sporadic or concentrated on one group during a specific battle. If the goal is to secure an Assad-led coastal Syrian rump-state, it is coming at high cost to Assad’s Iranian ally.

The most well known of Tehran’s casualties was the 67 year old Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General, Hossein Hamedani. Announced as having been killed on October 9th, Hamedi was reportedly killed in Aleppo. Officially, he was described by the Iranians as a, “high-ranking military advisor” to Assad. But to write Hamedani off as merely an “advisor” would be the equivalent of referring to Napoleon as just, “a French general.”

Hamedani’s career spanned the decades as a true believer in Ayatollah Khomeini’s radical Islamic Revolution in Iran. In the early days of the Islamic Republic of Iran and like his cohort, IRGC Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani, Hamedani received his baptism by fire combatting insurgents in Iranian Kurdistan and fought in the Iran-Iraq War. Additionally, he had served as deputy commander in the IRGC-controlled Iranian militia known as the Basij. More recently, Hamedani was a key figure involved in suppressing Iran’s Green Movement, which protested the rigged 2009 presidential election. According to Iranian publications, Hamedani later went on to operate out of Najaf, Iraq.

Hamedani was also one of the more vocal IRGC leadership elements operating in Syria. While IRGC involvement in Syria is general knowledge, Tehran often masks their intervention. Still, on May 2014, Hamedani announced IRGC involvement in the conflict, and went so far as to say that thousands of IRGC and Basij would be sent to Syria. In 2014 he remarked, “today we fight in Syria for interests such as the Islamic Revolution”.

In Syria, Hamedani’s expertise in spreading Iran’s Islamic Revolution, combating insurgent elements, and propping-up local strongmen truly gleamed. In his last interview, the IRGC leader noted that with his assistance, Iran had been able to not only spread Iranian ideological influence, build up Assad’s forces, and extensively push back anti-Assad elements. In other obituaries, it was also claimed he had participated in 80 “major operations” to help further these goals.

Praising the IRGC and Basij while gloating over the expansive presence Iran had gained in the region, in 2014 Hamedani told Iranian veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, “know that by establishing the Basij the third child of the revolution is being born in Iraq after Syria and Lebanon. It is no longer just Iran that says ‘down with America.’ All nations are in unison and are shouting the slogan.”

With the loss of Hamedani came the loss of a major leadership element within the IRGC, one Tehran will not likely be able to regain. Still, Hamedani was not the last IRGC commander to have met his end in Syria in the past few days. On October 12th, two more IRGC Brigadier Generals were slain. Farshid Hasounizadeh and Hamid Mukhtarband, both were former commanders of the Sabreen and 1 Brigades, respectively.

While Hamedani was the recipient large memorial celebration by Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s “first among equals” in terms of proxy groups, Hezbollah itself has also been suffering leadership losses in Syria.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/14/iran-s-losing-major-operatives-in-syria.html