A rebel onslaught on the Syrian town of Khan Touman near Aleppo last week delivered one of the biggest battlefield setbacks yet to the coalition of foreign Shi’ite fighters waging war on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reported on Friday.
Reports put the death toll among the Iranian, Afghani and Lebanese militiamen as high as 80 in the attack. At least 17 of the dead were Iranians, seemingly the highest toll in a battle outside the Islamic Republic’s borders since the Iran-Iraq war.