The Tabnak news website, which is affiliated with former IRGC Commander Mohsen Rezaii, acknowledged this fact on Thursday, April 14.

IRGC Brigadier General Mohammadreza Fallahzadeh was the Governor of Yazd for six years (2007-2013), coinciding with the last six years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. He was injured as his vehicle came under mortar fire in southern Aleppo. He was immediately transferred to Tehran and is currently hospitalized in a hospital there.

The state media also reported that five IRGC members and mercenaries fighting for the group’s foreign operations branch, the Quds Force (QF), were killed in Syria on April 15 and 16. They were: Alireza Safarpour from Armored Unit 60 of Gonbad-e Kavous County (northern Iran); Hosseinali Kiani and Aqil Shabik from Sistan and Baluchistan Province (southeastern Iran); Ali Bayat, a commander of Afghan forces in the Fatemyoun Division which operates under IRGC-QF command; and Abdollah Tohidi from Pardis County (Tehran Province) also an Afghan under QF command.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) issued a communiqué on April 8 reporting on the increase of Iranian regime’s forces in Syria. According to reports obtained from inside the Iranian regime, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered additional large-scale deployments of IRGC forces and mercenary militias, as well as Iranian Army personnel, to Syria to launch new attacks against the opposition and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), especially in Aleppo province.

According to the NCRI, Khamenei is extremely fearful that following the relative cessation of hostilities pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Russia and a halt or significant decline of bombings in areas under the opposition control, the situation will return to conditions like those prior to September 2015, when FSA forces reportedly had the upper hand on the Syrian Army and the IRGC.

The NCRI statement added: “In a move unparalleled since the Iran-Iraq war, Khamenei has deployed his military on a large scale for export of terrorism and warmongering abroad. Amir Ali Arasteh, deputy coordinator of the army’s ground forces, stated that forces from the 65th Commando Brigade have been dispatched to Syria and other army units will join them as well. The 65th Commando Brigade, aka Nohed, is extremely loathed by the Iranian people for suppressing Iranian people in the 1978-79 uprising and during the rule of the mullahs’ regime”.