Ayman Muhammed, Baladi News
Iran has massed through the past few months thousands of members from the Iraqi and Afghan militias along with leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Basij forces in order to start Aleppo's grand battle, according to informed sources.
Since the beginning of the Russian military intervention in Syria, Iran has mobilized its militias for the battles of the towns of Nubbul and Al-Zahraa in the northern countryside of Aleppo, lifting the siege from the towns of Kefraya and Al-Fu'ah in Idleb, encircling the city of Aleppo from the north through Nubbul and Al-Zahraa, triggering the fronts of Kurdish units in Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood in Aleppo, and finally having access to the international highway connecting Aleppo and Damascus from the southern countryside of Aleppo, sources confirmed.
Sources pointed out that Iran benefited the most from the Russian military intervention in Syria, as it reinforced its fronts with militias exploiting the cease-fire. They also noted that the failure of Iranian militias in the southern countryside of Aleppo is the reason for postponing the battle of controlling Aleppo.
"Iran felt despite all what it had provided to the Assad regime over the past five years of the Syrian revolution that its role will fall for the sake of Russia. Iran has lost trust in the regime, therefore they are fighting individually in many areas, rejecting the presence of regime officers, especially the Alawites in the areas where the Revolutionary Guards and Basij forces are fighting", according to the sources.
"Iran's decision to send special ground units to Syria carries a political dimension more than a military one, as the presence of Iran in Syria exceeded the stage of sending special units to a role much more bigger than many imagined. Iran announced the death of the second senior of the Revolutionary Guards, the major general (Hossein Hamadani) on October 7 last year, noting that Hamdani directly observed the establishment of what is known today as the national defense, which is Iran's alternative to the Syrian army. Iran believes that the National Defense forces are ideologically loyal to it and to its sectarian project in the region, while the Syrian army, on the other hand, is loyal to Russia", sources added.
Sources went on saying that "Iran considered that the Russian intervention had drifted it away from being noticed, especially after the visit of Bashar al-Assad to Moscow. Therefore, Iran will thwart any political solution in Syria and derail the Geneva talks," adding that Iran instructed Assad's regime to announce the battle through his Prime Minister.
Numbers of Iranians being killed in battles against rebels in the southern countryside of Aleppo are on the rise, in conjunction with the insistence of the commanders of the Iranian militia on increasing the number of fighters and training them for the battle in Aleppo.
The intention of Iran and it's allied militias to spread in the countryside of Aleppo comes in conjunction with the announcement of regime officials that the regime army is ready to begin what they called the battle of liberation of Aleppo under a Russian air cover.
TASS news agency quoted the Syrian Prime Minister, Wael Al-Halaki, telling Russian lawmakers visiting Syria on Sunday, that "The Russian air Force and the regime Army are preparing a mutual operation to what he called the liberation of Aleppo."
The Iranian militias fighting along with the regime in Aleppo, suffered heavy losses in the countryside of the city, where a number of officers and members were killed in attempts to break into the town of Al-Eis and other villages in the southern countryside of Aleppo, in the presence of the commander of Iran's Qods Force, Qasem Soleimani, who was present to control the operations, according to Iranian media sites.
