Syrian government guerrilla fighters being sent to Iran for training

 

Insight: Syrian government guerrilla fighters being sent to Iran for

training

Reuters - 1 hr 47 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-syrian-guerrilla-fighters-being-sent-iran-training-105420534.html

 

 

   

 

    Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad get briefed before

being deployed from the al-Sabaa Bahrat district to the old souk of Aleppo

February 21, 2013. REUTERS/George Ourfalian

    View Photo

 

    Reuters/Reuters - Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad get

briefed before being deployed from the al-Sabaa Bahrat district to the old

souk of Aleppo February 21, 2013. REUTERS/George Ourfalian

 

HOMS PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - The Syrian government is sending members of

its irregular militias for guerrilla combat training at a secret base in

Iran, in a move to bolster its armed forces drained by two years of fighting

and defections, fighters and activists said.

 

The discreet program has been described as an open secret in some areas

loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush a revolt against

his family's four-decade hold on power.

 

Reuters interviewed four fighters who said they were taken on the combat

course in Iran, as well as opposition sources who said they had also been

documenting such cases.

 

Israel's intelligence chief and a Western diplomat have said Iran, Assad's

main backer, is helping to train at least 50,000 militiamen and aims to

increase the force to 100,000 - though they did not say where the training

occurred.

 

No one at Iran's foreign ministry was available for comment, but Iranian

officials have repeatedly denied military involvement in the Syrian

conflict, saying they have only provided humanitarian aid and political

support for Assad.

 

A Syrian government security source, who declined to be named, denied that

Syria was sending fighters to Iran. "We train our own special forces for

this type of combat," he said. "Since 2006 we have had units trained in

guerrilla warfare, why would we need to send people to Iran?"

 

But if the reports by Syrian fighters are true, the move to train combatants

in Iran suggests that their country's increasingly regionalized conflict has

grown well beyond - and could even outlast - a battle for power between

Assad's circle and the opposition.

 

The fighters also appear to come largely from minority groups that have

supported Assad against the mostly Sunni Muslim-led uprising. Such a move

could exacerbate the dangerous sectarian dimensions of a conflict that has

turned into a civil war that has cost the lives of more than 70,000 people.

 

REGIONAL INFLUENCE

 

Iran, a Shi'ite rival to Sunni countries in the Gulf that support the

rebels, sees Syria as the lynchpin of its regional influence. Syria has been

its conduit to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah, which fought a war

with Israel in 2006.

 

"It was an urban warfare course that lasted 15 days. The trainers said it's

the same course Hezbollah operatives normally do," said Samer, a Christian

member of a pro-Assad militia fighting in rural parts of Homs province in

central Syria.

 

"The course teaches you the important elements of guerrilla warfare, like

several different ways to carry a rifle and shoot, and the best methods to

prepare against surprise attacks."

 

According to fighters interviewed in Homs, most men sent to undergo the

training are from the Alawite sect, the heterodox strain of Shi'ite Islam of

which Assad himself is a member.

 

A smaller number were Druze and Christians, whose communities are divided

but largely support Assad due to their fears of rising Islamist rhetoric

among the opposition.

 

"The Iranians kept telling us that this war is not against Sunnis but for

the sake of Syria. But the Alawites on the course kept saying they want to

kill the Sunnis and rape their women in revenge," said Samer.

 

"DIE AN UGLY DEATH"

 

Syrian residents living in areas controlled by the army or militias say

irregular forces have been increasingly "regularized" in recent months.

These groups now brand themselves as the "National Defence Army" and seem to

operate as a parallel force to the official armed forces - more lightly

armed but without any of the oversight or responsibilities.

 

Since 2011, security forces organized groups called "popular committees" for

neighborhood watches. These later became militias nicknamed "shabbiha", from

the Arabic word for ghost.

 

Shabbiha groups have been accused of some of the worst massacres of Sunni

civilians, including one incident in the central town of al-Houla, in Homs

province, in which more than 100 people were killed, half of them children.

Authorities blamed rebels for the killings.

 

It is unclear how many former shabbiha fighters have been sent on courses in

Iran, but some interviewees said they had assembled in groups of around 400

before being flown to Iran in smaller numbers. They believed the offer of

training was open to many pro-Assad militias operating across Syria.

 

Syrian shabbiha fighters say Iran is also training Syrians and supporting

their forces inside Syria, so it is not clear why courses have been run in

Iran.

 

The fighters interviewed said they believed the training implied a growing

crisis of confidence between Iranian forces and the Syrian army, which has

been plagued with corruption as well as defections to the rebel side.

 

Nabeel, a muscular Christian fighter from Homs nicknamed "The Shameless

One", said Iranian trainers repeatedly lectured on looting, a crime widely

committed by fighters on both sides.

 

"On our first day of training, the Iranian officer overseeing our course

said, 'I know exactly what is going on in Syria and want to tell you one

thing: If you joined the National Defence Army for looting and not to defend

your country, you will die an ugly death and go to hell'."

 

SECRETIVE TRAINING

 

The trainees interviewed said they were divided into groups. Some trained as

ground forces with automatic rifles and mounted anti-aircraft guns, others

as snipers.

 

The groups were all flown from Latakia air base to Tehran International

Airport and then directly bussed to an undisclosed location, they said.

 

"As soon as we arrived we were put on buses with windows covered by curtains

and they told us not to open the curtains," said the fighter Samer.

 

"We drove about an hour and a half before reaching the camp. It was straight

from the airport to the camp, from the camp to the airport. We didn't see

anything other than that camp."

 

All four combatants, who come from different towns and different militias,

separately described the same experience. They said they were usually

grouped into units of about 60 for training. The fighters said they were

trained by Iranian officers who spoke Arabic but also relied on translators.

 

The units also had contact with Lebanese fighters, said the participants,

who suspected those men of being Hezbollah militants helping to conduct

training or participate in courses.

 

"There were some groups from Hezbollah training at the same base but there

was no communication between our groups. They did their thing, and we did

ours," said Sameer, another militiaman from Homs. "I think their training

was tougher than ours."

 

GULF SEEKS TO "BLEED" IRAN

 

Iran has supported and helped train Syria's army under long-standing

military cooperation agreements, but a push into training its paramilitary

forces could aggravate regional rivals such as Israel, which is particularly

wary of Syrian groups increasing coordination with Hezbollah, or Saudi

Arabia.

 

"If the Saudis felt that the Iranians are really moving this game up, they

will be sure to check that escalation by increasing assistance to rebel

fighters," said Michael Stephens, a Doha-based analyst for the security

think tank RUSI.

 

"Saudi Arabia is totally focused on this as a way to make the Iranians bleed

... keep the Iranians bogged down in this proxy war, bleed them dry."

 

The fighters described the training as far superior to skills they had been

taught in courses inside Syria.

 

"Before I could only hit targets 50 percent of the time, now I can hit a

target around 90 percent of the time," said Samer.

 

"In Syria, they made the priority defending the place we are in, no matter

the price. In Iran, they told us to save our lives. If you lose the position

but survive, you can recoup and regain the site another day. If you die,

your position will eventually be lost."

 

(Writing and additional reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

 

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.