The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that one of its Aerospace Force officers has died due to injuries sustained in an airstrike in Syria. Tehran claims that this attack was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition.
In a statement published by Iranian regime news agencies on Thursday, August 15, Hossein Salami, the commander of the IRGC, identified Ahmadreza Afshari as one of the “Aerospace industry specialists of the IRGC in Syria” who died from injuries caused by the airstrike.
Government officials and Iranian regime media refer to members of the IRGC operating in Syria as “advisors,” but most of them are members of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s extraterritorial branch, playing a crucial role in maintaining Iran’s proxy groups.
In his “condolence message,” Hossein Salami stated that Ahmadreza Afshari was injured during an attack by “coalition forces” in Syria that took place a few days ago. He was transferred to Iran for medical treatment but succumbed to his injuries on Thursday.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had previously reported that five Iran-backed militiamen were killed in Syria due to a drone strike in Deir ez-Zor province.
On August 11, Agence France-Presse (AFP), citing this report, announced that a vehicle carrying militia groups near the Iraq-Syria border was targeted in this strike. Reuters, in a separate report, also confirmed the deaths of five individuals in the attack, quoting two security sources.
The location of this incident was reported to be in eastern Deir ez-Zor province, where Iran’s proxy forces have a significant presence and have frequently been targeted by the U.S. or Israel. However, neither of these countries has claimed responsibility for this attack.
Israel rarely acknowledges its attacks on Iran-backed militias.
The August 11 drone strike on Iran-backed forces followed a drone attack on the International Coalition base in “Kharab al-Jir” near Hasakah in northeastern Syria, during which several U.S. and coalition soldiers were injured.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war over a decade ago, Iran’s proxy forces and Hezbollah have been fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Israel has also conducted hundreds of strikes against these forces.
An Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 is an example of these attacks, which resulted in the deaths of several Iranian military personnel, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force.
In retaliation for this attack, Iran launched unprecedented drone and missile strikes on Israeli territory in the early hours of April 13.
Regional tensions, which had previously escalated with the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, entered a new phase after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, during his visit to Tehran on July 31.
Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Since then, the Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened retaliatory action against Israel, while the U.S. has expressed its expectation that Iran will refrain from any potential military strike against Israel in response to Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination.
It appears that the Iranian regime is caught between the dilemma of whether to attack or not. If it attacks, it may face a severe response from Israel, and if it refrains, its claims of power will be questioned.
What is certain is that the Iranian regime is much weaker than it appears.
The regime’s primary fear is of an uprising by the Iranian people and potential overthrow, similar to what nearly happened in 2022 when the regime was brought to the brink of collapse. This fear makes the Iranian regime increasingly cautious of further causing tension in the region and weakening its stance.
