AFP, Washington, 13 Jan 2012 – Iran is supplying munitions to aid Syria’s bloody protest crackdown as part of a plan that saw President Bashar al-Assad welcome Tehran’s revolutionary guards chief to Damascus, senior US officials told AFP.
Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps elite Quds force, was in the Syrian capital this month, the official said, in what Washington sees as the most concrete sign yet that Iranian aid to Syria includes military hardware, the officials said.
‘We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad,’ one official said on condition of anonymity.
‘We think this relates to Iranian support for the Syrian government’s attempts to suppress its people.’
The official said that Washington has reason to believe that Iran is supplying security-related equipment, and munitions to Syrian forces.
The United States has long suspected that Iran has been aiding Syria’s purge against protesters as Assad tries to cling onto power and avoid the fate of other Arab dictators felled by the Arab Spring uprisings.
Another official said Soleimani’s visit marks the most concrete sign yet of direct cooperation between the allies amid a purge against Syrian protestors which the UN estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.