Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 26
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran's state TV has confirmed that its official, Davoud Javanmard was killed in Syrian clashes recently.
Javanmard was killed in a mortar attack near Aleppo, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Dec. 25.
The Iranian TV staff member, who was one of the "volunteer" fighters during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was killed in fighting with "Takfiri terrorists," according to the report.
Iranian officials refer to extremist Sunni armed groups in Syria and Iraq, including the IS (ISIS, aka ISIL or Daesh), as "Takfiri."
In recent months, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has lost about 50 of its servicemen in Syria.
Tehran has always expressed support for the Syrian government since it views the Bashar al Assad regime as its main strategic ally in the region and as part of an "axis of resistance" against Israel.
Western countries accuse Iran of running military operations in Syria, but Tehran denies these accusations. Iranian officials have repeatedly stressed that they only provide military consultations to Syrian forces.
Hossein Jaber Ansari, the spokesman with the Iranian foreign ministry said Dec. 14 that no request was submitted from Syria so far for sending fighters to the country so far, however Tehran would consider that if Damascus issues such a request.