Iran
IraniStock

Iranian media outlets reported on Monday evening that Abolfazl Alijani, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who served as a military adviser in Syria, was killed.

The Mehr news agency reported that Alijani, who operated in the Aleppo area, died "during a consulting mission in Syria."

No details were provided on the circumstances that led to his death.

Kan 11 News reported that Iranian authorities said in a statement that Alijani had a senior rank within the IRGC. It was also reported that the senior official will be laid to rest in Iran in the coming days.

While Iranian leaders deny that the Islamic Republic has a military presence in Syria, Iran is a key supporter of the Assad regime in Syria, having providing the regime with both financial aid and military advisers against a range of opposing forces since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made clear several years ago that Iran would withdraw its “military advisers” from Syria and Iraq only if their governments wanted it to.

Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in 2019 boasted that his country had “accomplished more than 90 percent” of its goals in Syria.