Revolutionary Guard General Killed in Syria amid IS Attack

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general has been killed near Aleppo while advising the Syrian army on their battle against Islamic State fighters, the guards said in a statement on Friday.

Moscow says it is targeting mainly Islamic State militants, but USA officials and Syrian rebels have said the strikes have hit mainstream rebels for the most part and are aimed at shoring up Assad’s embattled government and troops.

“Daesh has exploited the Russian air strikes and the preoccupation of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army in its battles in Hama, and advanced in Aleppo”, said one rebel commander with fighters in the region, using an Arabic name for IS.

France joined the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq previous year and expanded its campaign to Syria last month.

Moscow denied a United States claim that four Syria-bound Russian cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea had crashed in Iran on Wednesday.

The advance, which he said marked their biggest gains in the area since late August, brought them within 2 km (just over a mile) of a government-held industrial zone on the northern edge of Aleppo, the largest city in north Syria.

About 200 insurgents were killed in an attack on the Liwa al-Haqq group in Raqqa province while 100 died in Aleppo, the defence ministry said.

In a surprise attack, the Islamic State group seized a string of villages from rebels in Aleppo province Friday.

The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman and Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered say a training facility, known as Vanguards Camp, was hit on the southern edge of the city.

Iran is one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main allies.

Syria’s military, backed by Russian Federation, Iran and allied militias, has launched a major attack in Syria’s west to recapture land lost to non-IS rebels near the heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an area vital to his survival. Tehran has provided his government with military and political backing for years and has kept up its support since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.

He was speaking after French warplanes conducted new strikes overnight on IS targets in Syria, where Paris launched its first raids on September 27.

Shiite-dominated Iran is a staunch ally of Assad, sending Guards forces and military advisers to aid him against Sunni rebels seeking his overthrow. Gen. Hamedani, a commander with the IRGC, had been killed by Takfiri Daesh terrorists during an advisory mission on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Aleppo the night before.

Turkey said on Friday it was concerned about a possible fresh wave of Syrian migrants arriving at its border as a result of Russian air strikes. He was a veteran commander who had an important role in Iran’s 1980-88 war with Iraq and was among top Iranian commanders coordinating fighting in Syria. The conflict has killed 250,000 people and displaced millions, causing a refugee crisis in neighbouring nations and in Europe.