Baladi News – Damascus (Mayar Haydar)
In the recent battles in the southern countryside of Aleppo in Syria against the Free Syrian Army, the Iranian Revolution Guard forces and their supporting militias inflicted unprecedented heavy casualties, including dozens of commanders and fighters killed, captured, or injured.
After the huge increase in the number of its casualties in Syria, Iran held a conference to support their families under the title “Honoring the families of the guardians of the holy lands”.
However, the families that attended the conference were shocked at the humble compensation awarded to them after losing their loved ones, which was merely a blanket for each family of a dead fighter. The blankets caused a wave of sarcasm among the Iranians, considering it “humiliating for the killed Iranian commanders who sacrificed their lives for the interest of their country”.
Iranian journalist, Hussein Shamshad, strongly criticized such a way of paying respect to the killed commanders, considering it a shameful scandal for its organizers. The journalist also indicated that the conference would have very bad consequences on the Iranian public opinion towards the intervention in Syria.
Iranian opposition activists said that this conference establishes a new concept that “An Iranian killed in Syria is worth a blanket”, which would cause Iranians to think twice before sending their sons to fight in Syria.
By granting blankets as compensations, the Iranians seem to imitate the Syrian regime, which awarded clocks to the families of its dead fighters in its allied cities of Jableh , Lattakia, and Qardaha.
Previously, supporters of Assad’s regime posted images on social media that show decorated tobacco packets granted to the mothers of the dead fighters of the regime, with each packet worth no more than five dollars.
Meanwhile, ministry of agriculture seems to give a greater value to Assad’s killed fighters from Al-Suwayda by awarding a goat for each of their families, which arouse dissatisfaction and resentment among the regime allies.