Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards killed in Syria

'A semi-official Iranian news agency says more than a dozen members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were killed in this week during an attack by militants in northern Syria'
[http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-05-07/russia-says-truce-in-syrias-aleppo-extended-for-3-days]

How curious!

It wasn't long ago that 'official' Iranian news agency, PRESS TV, and its mouthpiece/operative passing for 'political analyst & commentator', and the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the mother of all the lying plagiarizers vehemently denied Iran having any boots on the ground in Syria, rather only handful of 'military advisors.'

In fact on February 19, 2016, Iranian FM Zarif who lies not only with great ease but with a smile on his face, told European Parliaments; "Iran does not have boots on the ground in Syria, we have military advisers in Syria, as we have them in other places." An abject lie that have been amplified by these so called Iranian 'commentator/political analysts', whom are regularly invited to propagate their misinformation/disinformation/meditated lies on RT and PRESS TV.

Curiously as of May 2, 2016, total of 693 Iranian soldiers & militia fighters have been killed in Syria, of which 280 of them were killed between the onset of Russia’s intervention on Sept 30, 2015 and and May 2, 2016.

To wit while Iran maintains that only “military advisers” have been deployed to Syria, the state media keeps reporting numerous battlefield casualties, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) keeps disclosing new stats on casualties! So far Iranian media has reported that there were 400 Iranian “martyrs” in Syria between 2013 and mid-2015. smile emoticonWhy hasn't the scale of the 'reported' casualties cast doubt over Iran’s denials of any combat role in Syria, is in itself curious if not a joke.

The 13 deaths reported herewith in the attached article brings the total number of Iranian dead to 693 in just the last three years and given that the first IRGC personnel arrived in Syria in 2012 and many losses have probably gone unreported, the real toll is almost certainly higher.

But while the 'truth' is a scarce commodity and hard to come by any stretch of imagination when we are dealing with Iran, we can consider the statistic reported by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which puts number of Iranian troops at 2000, majority of whom are from the Quds Force - the special forces wing of the IRGC - where IRGC provides these units with recruits, weapons, training and military planning. In total, there are believed to be at least 3,000 Iranian military personnel in Syria.

3000 is a significant number of 'military advisers' I say, the only other country with more military advisors (somewhere around 50,000+ mark) is the United States whose military advisors have been 'advising' Iraqi military since 2003.

Susan Nevens - 11 May 2016