Iran’s IRGC reduces officers deployment in Syria – Reuters
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reduced the deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to the recent intense airstrikes by Israel, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Reuters cited three sources as saying that Iran’s decision to pull out senior officers is driven partly by its aversion to being sucked directly into a conflict bubbling across the Middle East.
According to the sources, the decision emphasizes how the consequences of the Israel-Hamas war are unfolding in the region.
Since the Israel-Hamas war, Israel has intensified its airstrikes against Iranian officers in Syria killing a number of the them.
One of the sources told Reuters that senior Iranian commanders had left Syria along with dozens of mid-ranking officers, describing it as a downsizing of the presence.
On Jan. 29, an exclusive source of the IRGC told North Press that the militia evacuated most of its posts and militias in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, eastern Syria, as well as some of its positions in Homs Governorate, in central Syria.
Before that, Iranian-backed militias evacuated several posts in Deir ez-Zor and relocated them in areas in rural Homs. This move was made in anticipation of potential retaliatory airstrikes by the United States following the attack on the American base in northeastern Jordan that resulted in the death and injury of approximately 40 American soldiers.
Three of the sources said the IRGC would manage Syrian operations remotely, with help from its ally the Lebanese Hezbollah, according to Reuters.
They added that the changes so far had not had an impact on operations. The downsizing would “help Tehran to avoid being pulled into the Israel-Gaza war,” one of the sources, an Iranian, told Reuters.