Will IRGC losses drive Tehran out of Syria after commander Dabirian’s death?

Ali Ragab

Ferhad Dabirian, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) in Syria, was announced killed in Damascus, adding to the list of killed Khamenei’s men in the region, following the death of IRGC major general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency identified the commander as Farhad Dabirian and said he was killed in the south Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab. The area is home to a holy shrine for Shiite Muslims.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing and Fars reported no additional details on how Dabirian was killed.

Fars said Dabirian was a commander of the battle to retake the historic town of Palmyra from Daesh.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also reported that Dabirian was killed Friday night without saying how.

Dabirian’s death comes two months after the targeted killing of Qods Force commander Soleimani by a U.S. drone near Baghdad airport on January 3. This is the second IRGC officer killed following Soleimani’s death. A month ago, Asghar Pashapour, a senior commander was also killed in Syria.

Iran had earlier announced that 400 of its soldiers had died on Syria’s battlefields since 2011, later, Mohammadali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs, said the number has exceeded 1,000.

The reports of Dabirian’s death came as a ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkey took hold in the Idlib province, where the Syrian regime launched an offensive to take rebel-controlled areas.

Last month, a top commander in Iran’s Quds Force who was close to its slain leader, Qassem Soleimani, was reported to have died in battle in Syria.

Asghar Pashapour, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards’ extraterritorial force, was killed in battle with Syrian opposition forces in Aleppo, reports in Iranian and Arabic media said.

According to calculations by Mansour Farhang, a United States-based scholar and former Iranian diplomat, Iran has spent at least $30 billion on Syria in military and economic aid.

Currently, Iranian forces operate out of 11 bases around the country, as well as nine military bases for Iranian-backed Shiite militias in southern Aleppo, Homs and Deir Ezzor provinces, as well as about 15 “Hezbollah” bases and observation points mostly along the Lebanese border and in Aleppo.

For his part, researcher in Iranian affairs Dr. Mohamed Benaya, believes that Iran’s losses in Syria place many scenarios, most importantly is the rise in popular pressure and the deterioration of the economic situation, which leads to the exit of the IRGC from Syria while maintaining its economic interests.

He added in an interview that another scenario might be that Iran’s militias will spread in Syria and legalize their deployment to serve Iran’s interests and encounter Russia’s existence, pointing out that Iran might completely pull out of Syria, which is, however, the weakest possible scenario.