IranWire Exclusive: Revolutionary Guards send 150 machine gun-wielding recruits into Syria

November 10, 2020

2 min read

Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, a Shia militia and political party, receives funds from Iran and training from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

IranWire has obtained a video of an Iran-sponsored Shia militia, known as the Abu Al-Fadl Al-Abbas Brigade, holding a "graduation" in the al-Mayadin desert in eastern Syria

This week a 150-strong military convoy belonging to an Iran-sponsored Iraqi militia rumbled into the city of Albukamal in eastern Syria.

Fighters from Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, a Shia militia and political party that receives funds from Iran and training from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had entered Syria from through the border city of Husaybah and entered the town at about 1pm on Monday, November 9.

An informed source told IranWire that the convoy had comprised 15 pickup vehicles, equipped with heavy machine guns. They are understood to have come from a camp supervised by the IRGC in southern Iran, indicating this group of Iraqi nationals is being kept on a tight leash and may have been transferred to Albukamal as a form of punishment.

The same source said the IRGC has recently sent military reinforcements from its camps in the Aleppo countryside to Palmyra, Deir Al-Zour, and Raqqa to reinforce its positions. These troops are thought to number about 1,000 all in all.

The area of Syria extending from Palmyra towards Albukamal has been subjected to repeated attacks by ISIS cells based in the desert. By sending in reinforcements, both Iran-backed and Russia-backed militias are trying to gain control over the eastern region. A day after the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq forces arrived, a convoy of three Russian armored vehicles also entered across the border and headed in the direction of the Russia-controlled Al-Ward oil field.

Inside Syria the IRGC is also continuing to recruit young men to fight in the interests of Iran and the Assad regime. Recruitment efforts are taking place most prominently in the cities of Al-Mayadeen and Albukamal, in coordination with the Syrian regime's security apparatus and the military police. In some cases young men who did not sign up earlier, and who are wanted for petty crimes or security-related, are being pressured to enlist with the offer of “protection” and the promise that Syrian police will not come after them if they sign up.