[An Nahar] A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has been killed during fighting in Syria, Iran's state media reported on Tuesday."Brigadier General Abdollah Khosravi, a senior war veteran, was martyred on Saturday in Syria," the Basij news agency said without giving further details.
According to Fars news agency, Khosravi was commander of the Fatehin Battalion, made up of Iranian volunteers fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Its members are drawn from the powerful Basij militia, a volunteer force linked to the Revolutionary Guards and sometimes used for domestic security inside Iran.
Tehran supports Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
and Iran-backed forces have been on the front lines in battles against
...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.
Iran denies sending professional troops to fight in Iraq and Syria, saying it has only provided military advisers and organized brigades made up of volunteers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistain.
Khosravi will be buried in his home town of Arak in central Iran on Thursday, along with Afghan recruit Javid Hosseini, state broadcaster IRIB said.
Iranian media regularly report on the funerals of Iranian, Afghan and Pak "deaders" killed in fighting in Syria.
Authorities rarely issue official casualty figures.
The most recent corpse count, from the veterans' organization in March, was 2,100. It gave no details on how many were foreign recruits.