Most of the forces have already been returned home, and the rest are on their way out, Channel 2 said. It said the decision was taken by Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.
The forces, drawn from various units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, have been increasingly deployed to fight alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces for more than the past two years. They have sustained some 160 fatalities, with over 300 injured, the TV report said. Among the dead are at least six senior officers, including generals and colonels.
The report did not specify a single reason for the withdrawal, which comes amid a fragile new cease-fire in the bitter civil war, but highlighted an Iranian tradition, breached by their deployment, not to deploy fighting forces beyond the immediate area of Iran.
The report said 700 Iranian military advisers were staying in Syria, to assist Assad. (READ MORE)
