Has Iran been involved in the killing of protesters against the Syrian regime, asks Bassel Oudat in Damascus Since the beginning of the protests against the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad 10 months ago, Iran has declared its support for the Syrian regime and accused the protesters and opposition of being part of a Western conspiracy to bring down the "axis of resistance" against Israel, of which Syria is a cornerstone, along with Iran, the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah and the Palestinian group Hamas. Accusations of Iranian involvement in the Syrian crisis have been levelled by the US and the EU, as well as by Syrian opposition groups and protesters. Supreme Guide of the Iranian revolution Ali Khamenei has described the Syrian uprising as being "a fake copy of the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya," and Ali Akbar Wilayati, senior Iranian adviser for international affairs, has said that "anyone who tries to overthrow the Syrian leadership is running after a mirage." What was taking place in Syria was "an international conspiracy" against the country, supported by elements inside the country with funds and weapons from abroad, Wilayati said, insisting that Syria "is the golden link in the chain of the axis of the resistance" to Israel. Although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the events in Syria as "a domestic issue," he has nevertheless also said that instability in Syria "achieves the goals of the US, its allies and the Zionist regime" in Israel. According to General Qasem Suleimani, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and close to Khamenei, "the supporters of the opposition in Syria have been unable to organise a million-man march against the government," seeming to forget that the Syrian military has cut off the country's towns and cities from each other, effectively preventing large-scale mobilisation. At the end of last year, US reports said that the Iranian Al-Quds Corps, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, was supplying the Syrian regime with weapons for use against anti-regime protesters. The Revolutionary Guards were quick to deny the reports, saying that events in Syria were a domestic matter in which Iran had not intervened. At the same time, however, the Guards said that they would uphold a defence treaty with Syria if the country was attacked. In the early months of the Syrian uprising US officials accused Iran of sending advisers to Syria to assist the authorities in the crackdown against anti-regime protesters, alleging that the assistance included anti-riot and advanced surveillance equipment that would allow the Syrian authorities to track Facebook and Twitter users. Five months ago, the European media reported that Khamenei had set aside $5.8 billion to help shore up the Syrian regime, with a first installment of $1.5 billion being paid to Damascus immediately, followed by installments over the next three months. The reports said that Iran had provided the Syrian regime with 290,000 barrels of crude oil a day, later confirmed by former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam, who said that Tehran had sent advisors to Damascus to help put down the demonstrations. Meanwhile, Syrian protesters have said that Syrian security agencies have been using Iranian-made electric batons against the demonstrators. The snipers atop government buildings and high rises in Syria are Iranians, opposition sources say, though this has not been confirmed by evidence. Lieutenant Ahmed Al-Khalaf, an early defector from the Syrian army killed in battle in the city of Homs, commented in August on the role played by Iran in the Syrian uprising. According to Al-Khalaf, "Iran views Alawite rule in Syria as an extension of its rule. There are Iranian experts with Iranian equipment on Syrian streets, whose mission is to find Thuraya communication equipment used by the protesters. I confirm that Iran has sent tear gas, bombs and electric batons to Syria for use against the protesters." It is not only the West and the Syrian opposition that have accused Iran of actively supporting the Syrian regime, since the Iranian opposition has leveled the same accusations against Tehran. The National Council for Iranian Resistance, an Iranian opposition group, has said that there has been coordination between the Iranian regime and Iraq to transport weapons, armed units and oil to Syria across the Iraqi-Syrian border. On 2 February, the Syrian Revolutionary Leadership Council (RLC) in Idleb in the north of the country said that protesters in the city had detained six Iranian men near a children's refugee camp that security forces had converted into a barracks. The RLC said that this revealed Iran's involvement in Syrian affairs and called on Iran to admit the presence of its soldiers in Syria to assist the Al-Assad regime in cracking down on the protesters. It called on all Iranian elements immediately to withdraw from Syrian territory. For its part, Iran has denied that those arrested in February were soldiers, saying that they were Iranian visitors kidnapped in Syria while visiting a Shiite holy site. A Syrian army defector later denied the Iranian claims, saying that the military group was carrying passports without entry visas, residence stamps or work permits, while the civilian group mentioned by Iran had had passports with entry visas and residence and work permits. On 27 January, the Al-Farouq Squadron of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the city of Homs announced that it was holding seven Iranians hostage, five of them members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The men had been arrested with their weapons while they were operating as snipers in the city, sources said. A second group of three men had been civilians working at the local power station, the FSA said, adding that it would release the civilians but would keep the military men prisoner until the Syrian authorities had halted military operations in Homs and released Hussein Harmoush, a leader of the FSA captured inside Turkey. Iran has confirmed the detentions, claiming that all seven men were engineers working at the power station in Homs and that they were on their way to Damascus when they were captured by the FSA. Earlier this week, the FSA in Idleb announced that it had captured four Iranians who confessed on television to being members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and said that they had taken part in the killing of Syrian protesters. The Iranian consul-general in Damascus, Abdel-Meguid Kanjo, said that Iranian nationals in Syria had been kidnapped by armed groups aiming to "slander Iran by claiming it is interfering in Syria's domestic affairs." The Iranian foreign ministry called on all Iranians visiting Syria to travel by air rather than by land to avoid further kidnappings. Despite Iran's support for the Syrian regime, the Iranian leadership has attempted to play multiple roles, supplying the regime with weapons, funds and expertise while at the same time reaching out to the Syrian opposition and twice inviting a delegation from the Coordination Committees of the Forces for Democratic Change, the opposition inside Syria, to visit Iran for consultations. Meanwhile, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has revealed that Iran had approached the Brotherhood, offering it a share in a future national unity government on condition that al-Assad remains in power. The National Syrian Council, the opposition abroad, has rejected any contacts with Iran until it ends support for the Syrian regime. Observers say that Syria has long played a key role in Iran's Middle East strategy, standing by Tehran during Iran's confrontation with the Iraq of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in contradiction to the prevailing Arab consensus that favoured Iraq. They accuse Iran of now trying to return the favour by shoring up the Syrian regime, fearing that Syria could become a battleground between the FSA and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards should the Syrian regime be threatened with collapse.
