News ID: 46
While Western countries keep saying that Iran is keeping active military presence in Syria, Tehran has on numerous occasions denied the accusations and said that the country only provides President Bashar Assad with military consultation.
Publish Date : 09:47 - 2015 October 27

The controversy is further deepened by rival powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey which follow different policies that that of Iran in Syria.


While Iran supports Bashar Assad as the legal president of Syria, those two countries, along a bunch of other Persian Gulf states and Western powers, have been supporting the rebels which have been rendering chaos in the Arab country in the past four years.


The situation especially worsened after the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took large swathes of Syria in mid-2014.


Iran has kept saying that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) could become a major threat to regional countries if not crushed in Syria.


Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Hossein Salami said Iran plays a military role in Syria at four different levels.


The first level is strategic, in which Iran supports the people, government, and Army of Syria and conveys its experiences to them, he said Oct. 27.


"At this level we help them rebuild the structure of the Syrian Army,” he said. "The Syrian Army needs complementary for defense, which is the public mobilization. We introduced this into the Syrian Army and the job was carried out through advisors.”


The controversy over Iran and the Syrian Army


He said the second level is operational, in which Iranian military advisors teach high and middle-ranking Syrian officers.


"The third level is tactical, in which our commanders provide consultation to Syrian commanders. And the fourth levels is related to logistics and providing equipment and education for keeping and repairs,” he pointed out.


Salami noted Iran offers the services based on a request from the Syrian government.


"If we let Syria alone with Takfiris, we would have to fight the terrorists somewhere else,” the commander said.


While Western countries have been accusing Iran of keeping a military presence in Syria, Iran says it only provides consultation to the Syrian Army and is not directly involved in the fights.


Tehran says Bashar Assad is still the legal president of Syria and should be helped against rebels who commit numerous terrorist acts in their campaign against Assad.


Iran has especially endorsed a recent military campaign by northern power Russia. It was about September when Moscow dispatched fighters to Syria to target the positions of the rebels.


Russia has been saying that the coalition led by the United States against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is sham and does not work.


Reports go that the recent strikes by Russia are far stronger and more effective in pounding the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).


In three days of operations, the Russian aviation group in Syria has hit 258 targets belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Jabhat al-Nusra terror groups, the Defense Ministry said on October 25.


"Over the past three days, the warplanes of the Russian air group have carried out 164 sorties, hitting 285 targets,” Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said Monday.


The controversy over Iran and the Syrian Army

In the past 24 hours, 59 sorties were carried out, targeting 94 terrorist sites in the provinces of Hama, Idlib, Latakia, Damascus, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor.


Konashenkov said a large ammunition dump belonging to the Jabhat al-Nusra terror group has been destroyed in Syria’s Damascus province. The two metallic hangars were razed to the ground as munitions inside them detonated following a direct hit by a Russian bomber.


On October 21, Russia and the US signed an agreement regulating the operations of the two countries' air forces in Syria. The deal is aimed at preventing incidents and providing for the smooth operation of the two nations' aircraft, and for mutual aid in critical situations. This shows that Russia’s airstrikes have been quite effective.


The agreement, whose full name is "The Memorandum of Mutual Understanding between the Defense Ministries of Russia and the United States on preventing incidents and providing for aviation flights during operations in Syria" is hailed as a 'positive step', the Russian Defense Ministry said in a press release.


The document "has important practical value. It regulates the actions of manned and unmanned aircraft in the airspace above Syria. The Memorandum contains a set of rules and limitations aimed at preventing incidents between the air forces of Russia and the US," the Defense Ministry says.


As soon as the agreement comes into force, there will be 24/7 communication channels established between the Russian and American military commanders. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, its US counterparts have pledged to convey the agreement's details to their anti-Islamic State coalition partners, so that they, too, follow the rules it sets.


Not only that, neighboring country Iraq which is also suffering the attack of terrorists has also shown inclination to use some of the airstrikes. Iraq's ruling alliance wrote to the country’s prime minister, requesting Russian help in the fight against ISIS terrorists. An Iraqi politician said that the public wants Russian involvement and there is breakdown in trust with the Americans.


 "The largest bloc has sent a request to the prime minister to add further forces to the fight against terrorism and not only to rely on the United States and the international coalition, which has up till now been rather shy in its efforts to destroy [Islamic State] bases in Iraq,” Saad Al-Matlabi, a member of the country's State of Law Coalition, said.


"Therefore it is understandable that the Iraqi parliament and the defense committee would send a request to the prime minister to add more forces and in particular the forces of the Russian Federation, which has proved quite efficient in destroying [Islamic State] bases in neighboring Syria.”


All this said, it seems that while the two world powers and former "poles”_ Russia and the US_ have engaged in direct military action in Syria, Iran is the least to be accused of any such action. The Islamic Republic’s policy toward Syria at least deserves recognition for it complies with world regulations and norms as long as the current Syrian government is globally recognized, including by the UN.

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