Iranian militias besiege Syrian cities as part of IRGC plan to change demographics

Eslam Mohamed

Iranian militias in Syria continue to spread to the east and south as part of a plan to change the demographics, led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including the Afghan Fatemiyoun, the Pakistani Zeinabiyoun, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, and branches of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

The militias were able to change a number of street names in Syria, especially the Sayyida Zainab area south of the capital, Damascus, which is one of the strongholds of the Iranian presence in the country.

The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that the general scene in the Sayyida Zainab area suggests that it has become an “Iranian region.” At the northern entrance to the area was erected a green banner written on it “Sayyida Zainab Circle,” while it was previously called the “Hujairah Roundabout.”

The area became a fulcrum for the gathering of fighters of various nationalities and became known as the Hawza al-Zainabiyya. Iranian nomenclatures became dominant in the Arab names in the region, and Tehran deals with the Sayyida Zainab region as a focal point for fighters of various nationalities around the world to gather, reaching up to fifty militias and including more than 60,000 fighters, according to various sources.

Iran’s strategy relies on the absence of appearances by the state and the establishment of militias loyal to it to ensure complete control that frees it of any responsibility. Therefore, the militias proliferated, and manifestations of chaos spread with them as they recruited young local people.

For its part, the US State Department confirmed that the United States will continue its endeavors to remove Iranian militias and those associated with them from all of Syria.

During his testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives during the last session of the committee before the inauguration of the new Congress on January 3, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Special Envoy to Syria Joel Rayburn confirmed his country’s seriousness in besieging the Iranian presence in Syria.

Syria is witnessing successive military attacks targeting the Iranian presence as part of the regional rivalry between Tehran and Tel Aviv, the latest of which was the attack on Friday night on the Syrian region of Masyaf, as Israel published pictures of Israeli warplanes attacking the city of Masyaf in the Syrian province of Hama, which destroyed four buildings that could be sites for producing missile engines and installing missile warheads.

It is reported that the attack killed six members of a pro-Iranian militia in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which stated that all the dead were armed non-Syrians.

It added that the missiles that were fired from over Lebanese territory destroyed “warehouses and centers for manufacturing short and medium-range missiles belonging to the Iranian militias in the Scientific Research Zone defense laboratories within the Zawiya area in the countryside of Masyaf.”