State Funeral for Iranian Commander Killed in Syria

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What many until recently refused to refer to as 'the Syrian War,’ claimed yet another life recently, among far too many civilians, soldiers, rebels, militiamen, terrorists, Jihadis and children. But this death doesn't go unnoticed as thousands of others have; the deceased receives a funeral  with full military honors. Not where he fell, in Syria, but thousands of miles away in his hometown of Kerman, in southeast Iran.

Commander Mohammad Jamali, a veteran of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite force, the Qods Force, died in an unknown location in Syria. He fought during the Iraq-Iran war and later joined the Qods Force, which came to be led and elevated to its present prominence under the leadership of the stealthy and mighty Qassem Suleymani, also from Kerman. Suleymani attended the funeral and paid his respects to a fallen brother-in-arms.

Some Iranian news websites have reported that Jamali died as a volunteer defending the shrine of Zeynab, one of most holy Shia sites in the Middle East, against extremist Sunnis. But others have suggested he was killed near the Sunni-(formerly)populated city of Aleppo in northern Syria, where extremist Sunnis, many of them arriving from other countries, are said to be fighting not just government forces, but also the opposition Free Syrian Army.

Syria is no longer the site of an uprising, nor a rebellion. It is far from a revolution. The mayhem is turning into a proxy where waged in the blood of others. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Saud Al-Faisal, chided US Secretary of State John Kerry for procrastinating while Iran “has occupied Syria.” The United States for its part, is wary of the Saudi cash and weapons flowing into Syria landing in the hands of Al-Qaeda fighters.

Commander Jamali’s funeral came just a day after the IRGC’s spokesman denied presence of Iranian brigades in Syria. But one day before that denial, a hardline member of the Iranian parliament and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards said advances made by the pro-government forces in Syria had only been made possible thanks to the presence of ‘hundreds of Iranian brigades.’

General Suleymani wore a dark suit and black shirt to the funeral. He seldom wears his IRGC uniform.​