BEIRUT – Washington Post, Oct. 19 – A senior Iranian commander is coordinating an assault on the Syrian city Aleppo by a mix of Shiite forces from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq in support of Syrian troops, militiamen say, an indication of deepening Iranian intervention in Syria’s war that has transcended national boundaries.
Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s terrorist Quds forces and the public face of Iran’s military intervention in the region, has ordered thousands of Shiite militiamen into Syria for an operation to recapture Aleppo, according to officials from three Iraqi militias. The militiamen are to join Iranian troops and forces from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia, the officials said. The Iraqi Shiite militia Kitaeb Hezbollah has sent around 1,000 fighters from Iraq, one said.
The new arrivals shore up the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose beleaguered forces had been losing ground before Russia began launching airstrikes three weeks ago.
“It makes no difference whether we’re in Iraq or Syria, we consider it the same front line because we are fighting the same enemy,” said Bashar al-Saidi, a spokesman for Harakat al-Hezbollah al-Nujaba, an Iraqi Shiite militia that says it has fighters around Aleppo. “We are all the followers of Khamenei and will go and fight to defend the holy sites and Shiites everywhere,” he said, referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Saidi said the group has been sending reinforcements to Syria for several months and is largely present in Aleppo. He declined to give numbers.
A girl crosses a street as damaged buses are positioned atop a building as barricades to provide protection from snipers of the forces of Bashar al-Assad, in the old city of Aleppo, Oct. 18, 2015
Saidi quoted Soleimani as saying that “the road to liberate Mosul is through Aleppo.” He referred to the Iraqi city that Islamic State militants seized in June last year and that has become the group’s de facto capital in Iraq.
The two terrorist groups, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Quds Force, which is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, have also sent reinforcements, he said. Last week, a U.S. defense official said hundreds of Iranian troops were near the city in preparation for an offensive.
His militia released a photo of Soleimani, the Quds Force commander, with its fighters near Aleppo on one of its social media accounts last week.
In August, U.S. officials raised concerns with Moscow about news that Soleimani, then subject to a United Nations travel ban, had traveled to Moscow in July to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Just short of two months later, both countries were escalating their military involvement in Syria in support of Assad.
Kitaeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia designated as terrorist organization by the United States, sent 1,000 troops to Aleppo this weekend, said a senior official with the militia. He declined to be named because of orders that the deployment should not be made public yet.
He said the men were part of the group’s elite forces, which have experience from fighting the United States in Iraq and had done previous rotations into Syria.
Civilians walk past sanitation cylinders placed as barricades to provide protection from Syrian snipers in the old city of Aleppo, Oct. 18, 2015
“They were sent based on a demand from Soleimani,” he said. “He specifically requested them for the launch of the operation of Aleppo, which is going to be led by Kitaeb directly under the supervision of Soleimani.”
Aleppo is also a largely Sunni city, where rebel forces have clung to the eastern half for the past three years.
Since Russia has launched airstrikes on positions in Aleppo, Islamic State militants have taken advantage to push toward the city from the north, as pro-government forces now move from the southern front.
Despite advances in recent days by pro-government forces, an Aleppo offensive has yet to begin in earnest, said the official with Kitaeb Hezbollah.
The 1,000 Kitaeb Hezbollah fighters “are our special forces and well trained from fighting against the Americans before, and in Syria and Iraq,” he said.
Several Shiite militias including Kitaeb Hezbollah have had a presence in Syria since 2013, though many of the militia fighters were pulled back to Iraq in June 2014, as the Islamic State made rapid advances in the country, threatening the capital, Baghdad.
Hasan Abdul-Hadi, a spokesman for Kitaeb Sayyid al-Shuhada, another Iraq militia, said his group has 500 fighters in Syria — in Aleppo and Daraa.
“Soleimani is the one who coordinates the operations, and the Iranians support us with weapons,” he said.
Loveday Morris is The Post’s Baghdad bureau chief. She joined The Post in 2013 as a Beirut-based correspondent. She has previously covered the Middle East for The National, based in Abu Dhabi, and for the Independent, based in London and Beirut.
