Taking place last Friday at Al Diwaniyah, Iraq, a Shia military funeral procession for Na'me Fazel, a Badr Military Wing volunteer killed in action in Syria. Note large placard of Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei.
Funeral box for Na'me Fazel, a Badr Military Wing volunteer killed in action in Syria. Placard includes image of Fazel in field dress uniform, as well imagery of Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei
Badr Organization members and affiliates at the Shia military funeral held at Al Diwaniyah, Iraq. Note Iraqi national flag hoisted beside decorated funeral box for Na'me Fazel.
Twenty-six years old Na'me Fazel, a Badr Military Wing volunteer killed in action in Syria. Self-depictions for Shia fighting forces engaged in the Syrian conflict customarily include reference to the defense of the Hazrat Zainab shrine.
Photos: ABNA.ir and AhlulBayt News Agency
The funerals of foreign militia fighters killed in action in Syria, like Badr's Na'me Fazel featured in this post, provide windows to otherwise "secret" involvement of IRGC in Syrian civil war. Badr Organization was created in Iran in 1982 to act as the military wing of SCIRI to oppose Saddam's rule. Since Saddam's fall, Badr was mainly acting as a political group inside Iraq. Media reporting of active participation of Badr and other Shia militias in Syrian conflict are confirmed by these funerals.
ReplyDeleteBadr Organization's involvement in Syria especially, with its tight relations to IRGC, confirms Syrian opposition's media reports of Quds Force's involvement in organizing, training and deploying Shia militias in Syria. Some other aspects of Iranian involvement, like funerals in Iran for senior IRGC officers fallen in Syria, opposition's reports of Iranian planes carrying arms to Damascus airport, the Iranian UAVs videoed over Syrian airspace, etc., adds to public information of the Iranian involvement.
If the reports of growing Iranian military involvement in Syria are true, it would be hard to believe why they want to keep it secret. After all, this would be Iranian military's first major participation in battlefield since the end of Iran-Iraq war, with all the experience gained on the ground at the heart of an anti-insurgency campaign.
I would imagine keeping the involvement secret is not just a political decision, but also partly due to the inability of Assad's military, supported by Iran and armed by Russia, to defeat what must be the most disorganized and ineffectual opposition insurgency seen anywhere in the globe! Not defeating them after three years of fighting could be embarrassing for Assad and for the QF, countering the popular narrative of a rising Iran in supporting Shia interests and exerting uber influence in the region.
SYRIA won this war two and a half years ago ! -
Delete@-these funerals of volunteers is a sign that things are under control.You don't get the bodies of fallen comrades from the other side of the battle especially if you are running from your enemy.
@-The BOD is supplying the Rats with new power and and we know these tools are in the hands of experts as these foreign combatants cant be trusted to man them.
@ you say its embarrassing that the Syrian Army can not defeat a disorganized and ineffectual opposition insurgency seen any where !-BUT embarrassment is when a superpower offers military support to an insurgency against a murderous dictator hated by his people, and yet fail to topple him three years down the line! again rising to its billing as the most lying empire and we know a lair will never succeed anywhere FOREVER!.
the war will continue until the Assads are driven off or dead. Iran's losses will mount, in both lives and treasure and whatever tatters of prestige remain.
DeleteAsa Opposition are made of mainly Jihadists and Al Qaeda affiliated groups. For the sake of region and the rest of the World, Asad although a dictator, remains a better of the two choices.
Deleteneither choice is good and both should be liquidated for the good of the Syrian people and the region.
Deletecrap about retaining the Assads for any reason or by protraying the alternative as worse is simply crap.
How long Iran will continue to lose its youth in a war which is taking place away from home and there are no guarantees that it may be benefitted from it once Bashar survives the insurgency.
ReplyDeleteUSSR had Afghanistan and Islamic republic has Syria. Beginning of the end comes to mind.
ReplyDelete