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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran spending $6 bln annually to support Assad regime |
| 2015-06-11 |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Iranian government is reportedly spending billions of dollars yearly to prop up the Syrian regime, according to a spokeswoman for the U.N. special envoy for Syria. "The Special Envoy has estimated Iran spends $6 billion annually on supporting the Assad regime in Syria. So it's $6 billion not $35 billion," Jessy Chahine, the spokeswoman for de Staffan de Mistura said Monday in an email, Bloomberg reported. Chahine's claims come in reaction to previous reports from the Christian Science Monitor citing that de Mistura informed last month a think tank in Washington that Iran was spending three times its official military budget to back the Assad regime. Iran's official military budget is estimated at $35 billion annually. Other experts, including Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University estimated that the numbers were even higher. Shehadi said his research showed that in 2012 and 2013 the Islamic Theocratic Republicspent between $14 and $15 billion in both military and economic aid to the Syrian regime. |
| Posted by:Fred |