Iran backs battle for Syria's Aleppo with proxies, ground troops washingtonpost

BEIRUT — A senior Iranian commander is coordinating an assault on the Syrian city Aleppo by a mix of Shiite forces from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq in support of Syrian troops, militiamen say, an indication of deepening Iranian involvement in Syria’s war that has transcended national boundaries.
Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the public face of Iran’s military intervention in the region, has ordered thousands of Shiite militiamen into Syria for an operation to recapture Aleppo, according to officials from three Iraqi militias. The militiamen are to join Iranian troops and forces from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia, the officials said. The Iraqi Shiite militia Kitaeb Hezbollah has sent around 1,000 fighters from Iraq, one said.
The new arrivals shore up the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose beleaguered forces had been losing ground before Russia began launching airstrikes three weeks ago. Pro-government forces have claimed victory in a string of villages around the Aleppo in recent days, in a conflict that Shiite militias frame as a single regional struggle between Shiites and Sunni extremists from the Islamic State.
“It makes no difference whether we’re in Iraq or Syria, we consider it the same front line because we are fighting the same enemy,” said Bashar al-Saidi, a spokesman for Harakat al-Hezbollah al-Nujaba, an Iraqi Shiite militia that says it has fighters around Aleppo. “We are all the followers of Khamenei and will go and fight to defend the holy sites and Shiites everywhere," he said, referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Saidi said the group has been sending reinforcements to Syria for several months and is largely present in Aleppo. He declined to give numbers.
Saidi quoted Soleimani as saying that “the road to liberate Mosul is through Aleppo.” He referred to the Iraqi city that Islamic State militants seized in June last year and that has become the group’s de facto capital in Iraq.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Quds Force, which is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, have also sent reinforcements, he said. Last week, a U.S. defense official said hundreds of Iranian troops were near the city in preparation for an offensive.
“It’s not a secret. We are all fighting against the same enemy,” said Saidi.
His militia released a photo of Soleimani, the Quds Force commander, with its fighters near Aleppo on one of its social media accounts last week.
In August, U.S. officials raised concerns with Moscow about news that Soleimani, then subject to a United Nations travel ban, had traveled to Moscow in July to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Just short of two months later, both countries were escalating their military involvement in Syria in support of Assad.
Kitaeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia designated a terrorist organization by the United States, sent 1,000 troops to Aleppo this weekend, said a senior official with the militia. He declined to be named because of orders that the deployment should not be made public yet.
He said the men were part of the group’s elite forces, which have experience from fighting the United States in Iraq and had done previous rotations into Syria.
“They were sent based on a demand from Soleimani,” he said. “He specifically requested them for the launch of the operation of Aleppo, which is going to be led by Kitaeb directly under the supervision of Soleimani.”
The militia official said the Syrian army would have a “minor role.”
The movement of fighters away from Iraq comes as the battlefield there stagnates. Iranian-backed proxy forces have largely been kept out of a battle in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, with the United States and Iraqi government raising concerns about the ideologically driven Shiite forces leading operations in a Sunni city.
Aleppo is also a largely Sunni city, where rebel forces have clung to the eastern half for the past three years. While Russia has attempted to portray its military escalation in Syria as directed against Islamic State militants, other rebel groups stand to lose in Aleppo.
Since Russia has launched airstrikes on positions in Aleppo, Islamic State militants have taken advantage to push toward the city from the north, as pro-government forces now move from the southern front.
Despite advances in recent days by pro-government forces, an Aleppo offensive has yet to begin in earnest, said the official with Kitaeb Hezbollah.
The 1,000 Kitaeb Hezbollah fighters “are our special forces and well trained from fighting against the Americans before, and in Syria and Iraq,” he said.
Several Shiite militias including Kitaeb Hezbollah have had a presence in Syria since 2013, though many of the militia fighters were pulled back to Iraq in June 2014, as the Islamic State made rapid advances in the country, threatening the capital, Baghdad.
“The operation is an extension for our operations in Iraq because it’s the same enemy, and when we hit them there it means that it will get results in Iraqi lands,” the Kitaeb official said. Soleimani “specifically requested they go there for the launch of the operation for Aleppo,” he said.
He said the operation was taking place under the “direct supervision of Soleimani.”
The Iranian commander has been a frequent figure on the battlefield in Iraq, where he has coordinated between Iraq’s militia groups in operations.
Hasan Abdul-Hadi, a spokesman for Kitaeb Sayyid al-Shuhada, another Iraq militia, said his group has 500 fighters in Syria — in Aleppo and Daraa.
“Soleimani is the one who coordinates the resistance factions, and the Iranians support us with weapons,” he said.

Salim reported from Baghdad. Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report. see more

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