Friday, October 30, 2015

Iran’s elite Rev Guards units routed by ISIS in the Al Safira pre-battle for Aleppo

The battle for Al-Safira, 20 km. south of Aleppo - and the key to its capture - will go down in Iran’s Revolutionary history as the most humiliating defeat its elite forces have sustained in all its 36 years.

This week, Iran sent into battle outside its borders 2,000 of its best-trained, loyal and well-equipped combat troops, detached from six elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) units.The battle at Al-Safira, fought with Russian air cover alongside Hizballah and Syrian army forces, was supposed to be the turning point in the Syrian civil war. Its objective was to break through Islamic State and Nusra Front defense lines around Al-Safira, and knock over the positions the Islamists had erected for blocking the roads from Aleppo and central Syria to Damascus, among them Route 5, the main highway. After that, they planned to advance on Aleppo.

 Their offensive had the opposite result. (READ MORE)