The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has reported that the death toll among the commanders of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the main apparatus of suppression and terrorism (IRGC), is rising rapidly.
According to the Turkish Anatolia News Agency, as of 1st November 2016, 15 Iranian military seniors have died in the Syrian civil war. “These were the commanders and militias of the IRGC who have been fighting in Syria since 2013.”
When the Syrian war was starting, several commanders of the Iranian regime were sent to Syria to act as advisors or fighters. As well as fighting for Syria, they provide training and logistical support to the country.
Turkish Anatolia News Agency said: “the Iranian Seniors’ death in Syria is steeply ascending. During the continuing conflict in Syria, Iran has been losing a number of commanders since 2013.The instance of such loss is the guardsman Zakeri who was killed in Aleppo two days ago. He was the former commander of IRGC’s operation in East-Azerbaijan Province and he went to Syria to serve as an advisor after his retirement.”
The report also said that on 28th October 2016, the guardsman Gholamreza Samaee was killed in conflict. Samaee was a commander and fighter of the IRGC and had a major role in the Iran-Iraq war.
Guardsmen Dariush Dorosti and Ahmad Gholami died on 2nd September and 31st October 2016 respectively. Guardsman Hossein Hamedani, the deputy Chief Commander of the Qods Force, lost his life in Aleppo on 9th October 2015. Several other IRGC commanders, Hamid Mokhtarband and Farshad Hasounizadeh, were killed in the city of Hama several days later.
The report adds: “The guardsmen Javad Dourbin and Shafi Shafiee were also killed in the southern area of Aleppo, Khan Tuman in May 2016. The other fighters such as Hasan Shateri, Mohammad Jamalizadeh, Abdollah Eskandari, Abdolreza Mojiri, Jabbar Darisawi, Ali Allahdadi, Mohsen Ghajarian, and Hasan Ali Shamsabadi were also killed in different regions of Damascus, Aleppo and Quneitra. The other militants that are affiliated with the Iranian regime are Fatimid Division and Zainebiyoun Brigade.”
The Iranian regime uses Afghan and Pakistani militants in Syria and they have also suffered major losses. Alireza Tavassoli, the Afghan commander of the Fatimid Division, died in March 2016 during conflict in the Deraa region. Since March last year several other commanders from the Fatimid Divison have died. These include Reza Khavari, Hossein Fardaei and Ali Bayat. In June this year in Palmyra the commander of the Fatimid Davison, Mohammad Hassan Hosseini, died.
“There is no official figure to show the number of Iranian casualties in Syria but as a rule of thumb, 1,360 people that have been deployed to Syria so far were killed during the clashes.”
