Iran Expands Role in Syria in Conjunction With Russia’s Airstrikes

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Oct. 2, 2015 | Sam Dagher and Asa Fitc

[tlozo]

Iran is expanding its already sizable role in Syria’s multi-sided war in the wake of Russia’s airstrikes, despite the risk of antagonizing the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies who want to push aside President Bashar al-Assad.

Politicians in the region close to Tehran as well as analysts...say a decision has been made, in close coordination with the Russians and the Assad regime, to increase the number of fighters on the ground through Iran’s network of local and foreign proxies.

The support also could involve more Iranian commanders, military advisers and expert fighters usually assigned to these units, these people said...

Mr. Wahhab stressed that Iran wouldn’t be dispatching troops in the conventional sense. Instead, they were likely to be officers and advisers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, he said.

Experts believe Iran has some 7,000 IRGC members and volunteers from the Basij paramilitary militia operating in Syria already.

Since late 2012 Iran has played a lead role in organizing, training and funding local pro-regime militias, many of them members of Mr. Assad’s Alawite minority, a branch of Shiite Islam. Experts believe they number between 150,000 and 190,000—possibly more than what remains of Syria’s conventional army.

What’s more, some experts estimate 20,000 Shiite foreign fighters are on the ground, backed by both Shiite Iran and its main proxy in the region, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.

About 5,000 of them are new arrivals from Iraq in July and August alone, said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland. He said this figure was compiled through his own contacts with some of these fighters, flight data between Baghdad and Damascus as well as social media postings.

“It looks like it was timed out to coincide with the Russian move,” he said.

[soycd]

Any action that eliminates islamo jihadi scum is a good action.

[familyop]

"Experts believe Iran has some 7,000 IRGC members and volunteers from the Basij paramilitary militia operating in Syria already."

Those are targets worth some points. If politicians want more points for doing something useful, they should push for hitting those targets.