Iran announced the top general of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Hamedani was killed by the Islamic State in Syria Friday. The general and some of his bodyguards were killed near an Aleppo military airport, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The news comes amid the Islamic State’s Friday victories in northwestern Syria. After Russian bombing, the jihadis captured six villages near Aleppo, according to reports.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani praised Hamedani as a “martyr” and said his death was a “big loss.” The general led during the Iran-Iraq war and cracked down on protesters of the disputed elections in 2009.
Over a year ago, Hamedani called Iran’s military involvement part of the “Sacred Defense,” a reference to the Iran-Iraq war, and said that “today we fight in Syria for interests such as the Islamic Revolution” and talked of the creating of “a second Hezbollah” in Syria. His remarks were eventually stricken from an account by Iran’s state-run news agency FARS because Tehran claimed to be not involved militarily in Syria.
Hamedani’s death highlights the high level of involvement the Islamic Republic has had in Syria’s ongoing civil war. While Iran for years denied sending economic or military help to Syria, Russia announced last week that its military strikes would assist Iran’s elite Kuds forces on the ground. Both countries are allied in their aims to bolster the regime of President Bashar al Assad and to defeat the Islamic State.
