13 Iranians killed in battle for strategic town south of Aleppo
Thirteen Iranian soldiers have been killed near Aleppo in what appears to be the heaviest loss of Iranian life in Syria since it deployed its forces to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad five years ago.
The elite Revolutionary Guards said 13 Iranian military advisors had been killed and 21 wounded when Islamist insurgents attacked the strategic town of Khan Touman, some 15km southwest of Aleppo.
“The violation of ceasefire by takfiri groups (radical Sunni extremists) in the vicinity of Aleppo and savage attacks by them…led to martyrdom of some of our [Iranian] advisory forces,” the guards said in the statement released on Saturday.
Iran’s state television said the rebels dispatched a force of at least 3,000, backed by tens of tanks to attack Syrian government forces and their allies stationed in Khan Touman.
The Islamist forces, led by the al Qaeda branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, captured the town on Friday. If they can hold it, this will be a major boost to opposition forces in other parts of northern Syria, opening up key supply routes. It will also push back the Assad regime’s line of defence in Aleppo’s surrounding countryside which, like the city, is split between opposition and government forces. Mr Assad has said he is determined to win back all of Aleppo.
The province is supposed to be part of a truce deal brokered by Russia and the US, extended for a further 72 hours on Saturday. But so far, the ceasefire is only holding in Aleppo city itself. Fierce fighting is still raging in nearby villages and regime air and artillery strikes are hitting towns like Khan Touman.
On Friday, Jabhat al-Nusra released photographs that appear to show wallets filled with Iranian money and identification cards taken from the corpses of fighters. Other pictures show what appears to be a pile of dead bodies in camouflage uniforms.
A video released by other opposition groups shows a man in Khan Touman picking his way through corpses on an empty street. The man says they are the bodies of Iranians and Afghans. Tehran has been sending not only members of Iranian forces, it is also accused of sending Afghan refugees to join Shia militias that have been bolstering Mr Assad’s forces.
The guards statement urged people not to be affected by the Islamist rebels’ “psychological war on the social media”.
In addition to Iranian experts and military commanders which are believed to help direct operations, Shia militias from Iraq and Lebanon have become a major component of the regime’s fighting forces in the battle for Aleppo. The Damascus government has been struggling with a manpower shortage, and many analysts say this has made Mr Assad critically dependent on militias and support from Iran.
A top advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader on Saturday reiterated Tehran’s continued support of Syria’s president in a meeting with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
“Iran will use all its means to fight against terrorists who are committing crimes in the region,” Ali Akbar Velayati, Ayatollah Khamenei’s top adviser on international affairs, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.