Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Killed in Syria

A senior Iranian commander has been killed in the southern countryside of Damascus, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Brigadier General Farhad Dabirian, a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was reportedly killed on the evening of Thursday, March 5 in the Sayyida Zainab area.

According to Fars, Brigadier General. Dabirian had been directly responsible for the IRGC’s forces in the area. Prior to this, the agency said, he had led military operations against ISIS in the city of Palmyra.

A source told IranWire that extensive military mobilization had taken place in the Sayyida Zeinab area from the evening of Friday, March 6, with increased security at checkpoints belonging to Iranian-backed forces. Intensive patrols were also carried out throughout the day on Saturday, March 7. 

The Nors Center for Studies, a Middle Eastern think tank that publishes regular updates from conflict zones, has denied all accounts of Dabirian's killing being an assassination operation. Instead, it suggested he was likely killed during Israeli air strikes on several sites in Homs which took place after midnight on March 5. 

The Arabic opposition channel Voice of the Capital Network also confirmed that Brigadier General. Dabirian had been killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted Al-Dab'ah Airport in Homs countryside. It claimed that the IRGC had sought to conceal the outcome of the targeted attack.

IranWire’s own correspondent in Syria, Taym Al-Ahmad, adds that several Iranian military leaders are known to have died in Syria. With the exception of a handful of unknown assassinations, the deaths are thought to have been as a result of Israeli strikes, or during battles alongside Syrian government forces against various opposition factions.

Iranian Twitter users backing the Shiite militia groups in Syria accused Syria’s ruling Baath Party of being behind the assassination. 

One user posted: “The national ideology of the Arab Baath Party differs from the religious ideology of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist. It is well known that Khamanei has just declared the Baath [Party] apostates, so no wonder Arab nationalist sentiment has grown against it.”