He had been involved for four years in Iran's operations in Syria, creating national defense forces for Assad, a fellow general and former chief commander of the Guards said in Tehran.
"Our security is not confined to our borders, it is related to the entire region. Hamedani was martyred in Syria so that insecurity does not reach Tehran," General Mohsen Rezaie, who recently came out of retirement to rejoin the military, said in tribute.
Hamedani was killed by "Daesh terrorists" he added, using the Arabic acronym to refer to the jihadist Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) group that swept much of Syria and Iraq last year, since holding ground.
Thousands attended Hamedani's ceremony. He will be buried in Hamedan, his home city, on Monday.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised Hamedani as "a sincere and diligent warrior" in a note of condolence to his family on Saturday.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, described Hamedani's death as "a huge loss" in the fight against jihadist groups in Syria.
Quoted by the IRNA news agency, he said the loss would be "avenged" and that this would lead to the "complete destruction" of these groups.
Shiite-dominated Iran is Assad's strongest regional ally and it has sent Guards as military advisers to help him against Sunni Muslim rebels seeking his overthrow.
Leb's Hizbullah
...
Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as
The Resistanceand purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
has done much of the fighting to prop up the Syrian army, though the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign wing, Qassem Soleimani, is said to be heavily involved in guiding military strategy.