Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 2
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
A senior military commander has said that the number of Iranian military advisers killed on Syria's battlefields has increased, as Iran seeks to monitor Syrian army operations on the ground.
"The number of our martyrs has increased in Syria, as Iranian advisers have to monitor the situation of the operations on the ground," the Iranian Mashreq news website quoted Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri as saying on Nov. 1.
Reporting about the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Major General Qassem Soleimani's recent remarks addressing a group of "the defenders of holy shrines," as reported by the semi-official Mehr news agency, also suggested that developments in Syria favor President Bashar al-Assad's government, as Tehran has increased the number of its military advisors serving Damascus. Mehr did not mention when and where Soleimani made the remarks.
Tehran describes Iranian and foreign nationals dispatched to Syria and Iraq to support Baghdad and Damascus as "the defenders of the holy shrines".
Tehran denies that it has deployed soldiers to fight in Syria, and says it only provides the Syrian army with military advisers.
According to Mehr, Tehran's move to dispatch military advisers to Syria is aimed at protecting Iran's national security and preventing war inside the country.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that some 30 Iranian servicemen have been killed in Syria over the past month.