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Former military commander: 130,000 Iranians are ready to fight in Syria

May 7, 2014 at 10:32 am

Fars News Agency, which is thought to be close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, posted an article quoting former IRGC commander Hussein Hamedani as saying that Iran is militarily engaged in Syria and currently has 130,000 Iranians ready to join the fight.

According to Hamedani, Syria controls the balance of power in the region. He explained that Iran has created a “second Hezbollah” in Syria to confront the US, Turkey and Arab countries backing the opposition against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

The news agency later removed the post, but a cached copy of the report is still available here.

Iran has previously gone to great lengths to deny its military involvement in Syria.

In the original post, the former commander boasted that every province in Iran has taken part in supporting the IRGC and the Defence Forces that Iran formed in Syria.

Hamedani also talked about the formation of popular forces in the Syrian cities, similar to the Iranian Basij forces, under Iranian supervision.