Is The Tide Turning Against Assad & Iran in Syria?

The undeniable truth is Iran has recently been suffering an escalating number of casualties in Syria. The highly-boasted Revolutionary Guards was forced to issue a statement on May 8th confirming the deaths of more than a dozen elite forces in battles raging in Aleppo environs, a city once known as Syria’s treasured economic and industrial hub. Aleppo has now become the major, and maybe determinative, front line after the civil war has been ongoing for 5 years and counting. Arab websites also reported on May 12th more Iranians being killed in Aleppo Province as the temporary ceasefire came to an on the midnight of Thursday. All signs indicate the costs of Iran maintaining Bashar Assad on the throne in Damascus is elevating to a painstaking extent, showing a shift in tides in Syria.

The recent Iranian casualties, along with nearly two dozen wounded (of course, according to official numbers), all add up to the highest number of casualties reported in a single toll ever since Iran rushed to the rescue of Assad. The village of Khan Touman, strategically located around 15 kilometers south of Aleppo, has been the recent flashpoint causing all the stir. Images and videos posted by Syrian rebels on the web showed many camouflage-dressed corpses, along with Iranian IDs, documents and printed currency.

Back in Iran the reports made a stir on the front page of all newspapers in Tehran. Iran has also dispatched a conglomerate of Shiite forces sent and recruited from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to fill in the void for Assad. Being a first since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Iran begrudgingly deployed special units of its regular army to Syria, only to suffer numerous casualties in less than a week along with many taken captive. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Iran has proven so by posting a disturbing IRGC-sponsored marketing video clip encouraging teenage boys, described as "child soldiers", to deploy for the fight in Syria. Despite all this mayhem, Iran continues to ridiculously claim its forces act as advisors. With the so many casualties dying on the battlefront already challenging this claim, the question what are "advisors" doing so close near the crossfire? Why isn’t the U.S. suffering similar casualties with all its advisors in Iraq and Syria?

Iranian state news agency have without elaborating identified above 400 killed troops in Syria from the span of 2013 to mid-2015. However, from last September onward, the Syria crisis has rendered another 300 Iranian fighters dead, according to Levantine Group that publishes monthly tallies. The past six months have delivered to Iran more casualties than their first two years of activities in Syria, with February (64) and April (50) accounting to the deadliest months to this day. This is certainly a major shift in Tehran’s level of meddling and casualties, and adding to the speculations of the tide turning against Iran in Syria.

Despite the scrutiny, Iran has gone to great lengths to craft and execute a blueprint of recruiting and deploying to Syria thousands of Afghans, literally as cannon fodders, to ramp up the war. These poor men have been left neglected and without any legal status after fleeing their own country’s wars. Left stranded for years in Iran, their access to education, health care and any king of social services is strictly limited. A child born in Iran to an Afghan father is not considered an Iranian citizen. However, Iran has taken full advantage of their poor conditions in recruiting them as fighters for the so-called "Fatemioun Brigade," consisting largely of Afghans under IRGC command. Iran deviously resorts to religious names to rally more troops for its foreign proxy wars. In this case, Fateme was the daughter of Prophet Mohamed and the wife of Ali, the highly praised imam in Shiite Islam.

2013 was the year when Afghans were initially spotted in Syria, as claims first indicated their mission was to protect sacred Shiite shrines. While Iran describes them as "volunteers," they were promised improved living conditions back in Iran, and even threatened to be deported to Afghanistan if refusing to cooperate. The presence of Afghans in Syria’s frontlines has today become undeniable. Last year two senior Fatemioun commanders were killed in action. They were both Afghans. Cities of Iran are constantly witnessing the burial of fighters killed in Syria, including Afghans. The Levantine Group also reported at least half of the 64 Iranians killed in April of this year were Afghan conscripts. More than 200 deaths were reported amongst the Fatemioun Brigade in 2015, according to Iranian state media.

At a time when Iran will "use all its means" to maintain Assad in power, according to Ali Akbar Velayati, a trusted foreign policy advisor to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, these means have recently gained a high price tag. Russia, indiscriminately pounding Syrian opposition rebels and innocent civilians without any distinguish, is reevaluating its future in the meandered Syria civil war and is currently engaged in close tête-à-tête talks with the United States over the future of the Levant, what is certain is the fact that the times have changed in Syria in favor of the people and their legitimate opposition. The shifting of the tides in Syria is becoming extremely hard to bear for Assad and Iran.

Pejman Amiri is an Iranian human rights activist and writes for democracy and freedom in Iran. Pejman tweets at @pj_arad and also his Facebook.