Tehran Deploys Commandos to Serve as Military Advisers
Iran announced Monday that it has sent commandos to Syria to serve as military advisers to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s army, Reuters reports.
Assad’s main regional ally, Tehran has provided economic and military support – in the form of paramilitary forces – to the embattled Syrian leader.
“We are sending commandos from army’s Brigade 65 and other units to Syria as advisers,” said General Ali Arasteh, the deputy chief liaison for the army’s ground force.
Up until this point, most Iranian troops on the ground in Syria have been from the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For more than a month now, the Obama administration has attempted to make the case that Iran is withdrawing its forces from the war-torn country.
Last month, Arasteh said that Iran may at some point decide to deploy commandos and snipers from its regular armed forces to serve as military advisers in Iraq and Syria.
Government Used Blacklisted Offshore Accounts to Fund Air War
The Syrian government has used shadow companies to dodge international sanctions to provide much-needed fuel for its military aircrafts, according to a cache of leaked documents called the “Panama Papers” released earlier this week by the French newspaper Le Monde.
Three Syrian companies – Maxima Middle East Trading, Morgan Additives Manufacturing and Pangates International – used a Panama-based law firm to create shadow companies in the Seychelles, a chain of islands off the coast of East Africa.
The companies were “a way for the Syrian regime to circumvent international sanctions imposed since the start of the war,” Le Monde said in its report, based on a yearlong worldwide investigation into a trove of 11.5 million documents leaked from the law offices of Mossack Fonseca.
Two of Assad’s cousins, Rami and Hafez Makhlouf, have reportedly used Mossack Fonseca to manage lucrative investments made in connection to their relations with the Syrian leadership.
E.U.–Turkey Deal Begins Resettling Syrians
The first wave of Syrian refugees to be resettled in the European Union under a new migrant-exchange deal with Turkey arrived in Germany and Finland on Monday.
The legal transfer of the 43 Syrian refugees took place as Greece officially began to return migrants and refugees to Turkey, under an agreement reached between Turkey and the E.U. last month.
The agreement stipulates that all “irregular migrants” who have arrived in Greece from Turkey since 20 March can potentially be sent back. Each case is to be examined individually, and for every Syrian refugee returned, another Syrian refugee will supposedly be legally resettled from Turkey to the E.U. The numbers for the agreement are capped at 72,000.
Only “two to three” Syrians were forcefully returned to Turkey from Greece on Monday, the Guardian reports.
Human rights organizations have been highly critical of the deal, claiming it may endanger those seeking to claim asylum.
Recommended Reads
- The Guardian: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca Serviced Assad Cousin’s Firms Despite Syria Corruption Fears
- War on the Rocks: The Syrian Civil War and the End of Turkey’s Liberal Dream
- The New York Times: A Jewel in Syria Where ‘Ruins Have Been Ruined’ by ISIS
- CNN: White House Weighs More Special Ops in Syria
- Forbes: How To Help Syria
- Los Angeles Times: Syria’s Cease-Fire Appears to be Collapsing
- UNHCR Innovation: Defying Gravity: Supporting Syria’s Youth by Disrupting Systems of Education and Development
- War on the Rocks: What’s Behind Ties Between Assad and India?
Top image: A Syrian child pedals through the Oncupinar refugee camp in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, March 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)