BEIRUT: A commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and a lower-ranking Iranian fighter have been killed fighting Daesh in Syria in recent days, Iranian media reported on Sunday.
The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force that also oversees an economic empire worth billions of dollars, have been fighting in support of Syrian president Bashar Assad for several years.
An Iranian official told the Tasnim news agency last year that more than 1,000 Iranians have been killed in Syria. Senior members of the Guards have been among those killed.
Kheyrollah Samadi, a Guards commander in charge of a unit in Syria, died on Thursday in fighting in the Albu Kamal region, bordering Iraq, according to Fars News.
Samadi was killed in clashes with Daesh, according to the Ghatreh news site. Iranian media have previously reported on fighting in that area between Iran’s Shiite militia allies and Daesh.
The Syrian army and its allies took complete control over Albu Kamal, Daesh’s last significant town in Syria, a military news service run by Hezbollah said on Sunday.
Samadi, who fought in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s and had retired from the Iranian military before signing on to go to Syria, was killed by a mortar explosion, Fars News, a news agency, said.
Iranian news sites posted pictures on Sunday of Samadi with Qassem Soleimani, head of the Guards branch responsible for operations outside Iran.
The lower-ranking Iranian fighter, Mehdi Movahednia, was killed on Saturday in clashes with Daesh in the town of Mayadin in eastern Syria, Fars News reported.
The Revolutionary Guards initially kept quiet about their role in the Syria conflict. But in recent years, as casualties have mounted, they have been more outspoken about their engagement, framing it as an existential struggle against the Sunni Muslim fighters of Daesh who see Shiites, the majority of Iran’s population, as apostates.
On web sites linked to the Guards, members of the organization killed in Syria and Iraq are praised as protectors of Shiite holy sites and labeled “defenders of the shrine”.
US President Donald Trump last month gave the US Treasury Department authority to impose economic sanctions on members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in response to what Washington calls its efforts to destabilize and undermine its opponents in the Middle East.
Revolutionary Guards commander, fighter killed in Syria, Iranian media say
Revolutionary Guards commander, fighter killed in Syria, Iranian media say
UNESCO fears for fate of historical sites during Iran war
- “UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Assomo said
- Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century
PARIS: UNESCO said it is deeply concerned about the fate of world heritage sites in Iran and across the region, after Tehran’s Golestan palace, often compared to Versailles, and a historic mosque and palace in Isfahan were damaged in the war.
The United Nations’ cultural agency on Wednesday urged all parties to protect the region’s outstanding cultural sites, saying four of Iran’s 29 world heritage sites had been damaged since the start of the US and Israeli war with Iran.
“UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the World Heritage Center, told Reuters, adding he was also concerned for sites in Israel, Lebanon and across the Middle East.
Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century, he said.
The palace was chosen as the Persian royal residence and seat of power by the Qajar family and shows the introduction of European styles in Persian arts, according to the UNESCO website. The last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, held a coronation ceremony there in 1969.
“We sometimes even compare it with the Versailles Palace in France, for instance, and it has suffered, unfortunately, some damage. We don’t know the extent for the moment. But clearly, with the images that we have been able to receive, we can confirm ... it has been affected,” Eloundou Assomo said.
Photos of the interior of the palace have shown piles of smashed glass and shards of wood on the floor, and shattered woodwork.
Isfahan was one of Central Asia’s most important cities and a key point on the Silk Road trading route. Its Masjed-e Jame (Jameh Mosque) is more than 1,000 years old and shows the development of Islamic art through 12 centuries.
Buildings close to the buffer zone of the prehistoric sites of the Khorramabad Valley have also been damaged, UNESCO said.
UNESCO has shared coordinates of key cultural sites to all parties, Eloundou Assomo said, and was monitoring damage.
“We are calling for the protection of all sites of cultural significance ... everything that tells the history of all the civilizations of the 18 countries in the region,” he said.
