On May 6, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps lost the strategic village of Khan Touman to Jaysh al Fath, suffering its worse defeat yet in the Syrian war. Iranian officials and commanders alongside state outlets have publicly downplayed the loss and have vowed revenge to retake the town. They also level accusations that the West and its regional allies support “terrorists” who take advantage of ceasefires.
The Syrian Army claims to have retaken the city of Palmyra from the Islamic State. Bashar al Assad’s forces, backed by their Iranian and Russian allies, are battling Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s jihadists on several fronts. The Islamic State frequently claims “martyrdom operations” against Syrian regime fighters in Aleppo province, Deir Ezzor, and elsewhere.
The deployment would mark the first time that Army forces, including commandos and snipers of the Rapid Response Battalions, have operated outside Iranian borders since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
“We want to be a third power in Iraq,” the commander of Saraya Khorasani said. “Why can’t the Hashd [Popular Mobilization Force] be like the Revolutionary Guard in Iran?”
Harakat al Nujaba has a long history with Hezbollah and Iran, in both Iraq and Syria. “The blood of Hezbollah which flowed in the land of Iraq is our responsibility for so long as we exist,” the group’s spokesman said.
Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq continue to showcase both the ownership and usage of US-made vehicles and equipment.
A former Guantanamo detainee named Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed was arrested on Feb. 23 in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, for allegedly running a jihadist recruiting cell for the Islamic State. Spanish authorities also claim that he and others were willing to carry out a terrorist attack on Spanish soil. According to a leaked Joint Task Force Guantanamo threat assessment, Ahmed traveled through Iran to Afghanistan to receive training in al Qaeda’s camps in 2001.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps mourns commandos from the “Saberin” killed in Syria. The Saberin is a unit modeled after Western special forces.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has invested significant resources to prop up Bashar al Assad’s regime. Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, who oversees all of the Shiite militias active in Syria, is directing operations in the battle of Aleppo.
The photo offers more evidence of another Iranian-backed militia in Iraq owning and using a US-made M1 Abrams tank.
The League of the Righteous, which has threatened Americans in Iraq and also carried out several kidnappings, is the prime suspect. The Shiite militia has denied any involvement in the abduction of the three Americans.
Despite the exchange of threats between Israel and Hezbollah, the latest attack in the Shebaa Farms does not indicate a large-scale confrontation is on the horizon.
This month, the Popular Mobilization Force began harassing Christians in Baghdad by suggesting women wear the hijab, or veil, and instructing the minority not to celebrate Christmas.
Iranian-backed Shia militias are fighting for Assad in Aleppo as regime forces, backed by Hezbollah and Russian airstrikes, try to push back jihadists and rebels in the northern province.
Harakat al Nujaba leader Akram al Kaabi met with Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, in Aleppo, Syria, according to the Iraqi Shiite militia.
Akram al Kaabi, the leader of the Iranian-supported Harakat al Nujaba militia that is based in Iraq and an integral part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, has said that he follows Iran’s supreme leader and would participate in a coup if ordered to do so.
A brigadier general and a colonel from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed while fighting jihadists and rebels. Nine other IRGC members, including two lower-level officers, were also killed in Syria over the past three weeks.
The Islamic State continues to harass Iraqi troops and Shiite militias around the central city of Samarra. Jihadists recently overran several areas near Samarra and deployed foreign suicide bombers during its assault.
Sayyid al Shuhada said it would “strike and destroy” Saudi interests, not just in Iraq, but inside the kingdom. The militia, which operates as part of the Iraqi government, Iran, and the US-backed Popular Mobilization Committee, is led by Abu Mustafa al Sheibani, a dangerous commander who is listed by the US as a global terrorist.
Officials continue to whitewash the role that Iranian-backed Shiite militias play in Iraq’s offensive against the Islamic State. The US continues to provide airstrikes to these militias, which are Iranian clients responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers and remain hostile to the US.
Photographs show the notorious Qods Force commander addressing Iranian officers and Hezbollah forces in Latakia. Iran is reported to have deployed significant forces, estimated at thousands of troops, to support the Assad regime’s offensive in northwestern Syria.
Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani is the third senior Iraqi military adviser who has been killed in the Syrian-Iraqi theater since the beginning of the year.
Testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade on the US counterterrorism strategy in Syria. “The West’s involvement is ad hoc, tactical and reactionary.”
Saraya al Khorasani, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia that operates alongside the Iraqi military, released a video showing the “Sheikh Hajj Hamid Taqavi training center.” Taqavi was an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force general who was killed by an Islamic State sniper.
The Al Nusrah Front, Ahrar al Sham, Jund al Aqsa, and the Turkistan Islamic Party have launched significant operations targeting two Shiite villages in the Idlib province of Syria. Their attacks are a response to the siege of Zabadani, a southern Syrian city, by Bashar al Assad’s regime and its allies.
Five veteran jihadists, including three members of al Qaeda’s management council, have reportedly been released from custody in Iran as part of a hostage exchange. The details of their detention and release from Iranian custody are murky.
One Iraqi soldier was killed today as the military raided a Hezbollah Brigades headquarters while searching for 18 Turkish construction workers who were kidnapped in Baghdad.
The Houthis have destroyed several armored vehicles, including US-supplied M1 Abrams tanks, while battling Saudi and Emirati troops.
A Badr fighter also displays an AT4 anti-tank rocket. US equipment that has been supplied to the Iraqi military continues to fall into the hands of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
During yesterday’s meeting in Tehran between Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al Abadi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the former introduced the latter to Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the operations chief for the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Committee and a US-listed Specially Designated Global Terrorist.