Iran, Hezbollah pouring troops into Syria to prop up Assad

Wednesday’s news is the first confirmation of Iranian fighters taking part in combat operations in Syria.

Iranian media refer to them as “volunteers” who go to Syria to defend a holy shrine and fight “terrorists”, a term used in the Islamic republic to refer to all anti-Assad forces – including Western-backed moderate opposition fighters who are fighting against Islamic State militants and against militants from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front.

Hopes have been high that the historic nuclear deal struck by Iran and six world powers in July would help pave the way for the country to play a more positive role in its tumultuous region. To the north, the Islamic State group capitalized on the strikes against rebels in northwestern and central Syria to capture a string of villages and a main military base from insurgents that brought them closer to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

It said Syrian soldiers and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah were involved in the assault. Soleimani is occasionally photographed with these militia leaders. “The decision to launch the battle of Aleppo has been taken…” Certainly, the United States pressure and ability to manipulate this group has suffered as a result of the involvement of the Russian Federation; and I think this is emboldening the Europeans to look for alternative partners in this process. In the past week, a senior Hezbollah leader known as Hassan al Haj was killed during the offensive.

At least 250,000 people have been killed since the Syria conflict began in early 2011, with 7.6 million internally displaced and over four million having fled to nearby countries.

The Russian Federation has also committed an expeditionary military force to back the Assad regime’s offensive. Hezbollah’s al-Manar television channel said the Syrian army was carrying out a land offensive in the northern Homs province.

Mogherini said that the talks between Lavrov and de Mistura were very important to end the Syrian civil war.

J.M. Berger, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, said the moderate rebels “are in a pretty bad spot, unless the West is prepared to sponsor them over the long term in a full-on proxy war against the Russians”.