Iranian regime has admitted that many of its Revolutionary Guards members and mercenaries deployed to Syria have been killed near Aleppo during past few days making it the biggest loss the Iranian regime has endured since deploying forces to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Fars news agency on May 7 quoted a Revolutionary Guards official as saying that 13 military advisers had been killed and 21 wounded in the clashes with Islamist insurgents on May 6 in Khan Tuman, some 15 kilometers southwest of Aleppo.
According to Reuters, dozens were killed in the battle.
Videos have published on social media purporting to show the bodies of Iranian regime mercenaries and other Shi’ite militias who were killed in Khan Tuman.
Earlier this week, the United States and Russia brokered a cease-fire in the city of Aleppo itself. But fighting in the countryside to the south of the city has escalated in recent days.
In related news, a senior Iranian official has met with Assad and vowed continued support for his government in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, met with Assad in Damascus on May 7.
Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted Velayati as saying that Tehran will always stand by Syria.
Velayati’s comments came as Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that a cease-fire in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has been extended by three days starting on May 7.
The Russian Defense Ministry statement early on May 7 said the extension was made at Moscow’s initiative and would also apply to the Latakia region.
With reporting by Reuters and AP, May 08, 2016
