2011 In the
civil uprising phase of the Syrian civil war, Iran was said to be providing Syria with technical support, based on Iran's capabilities developed following the
2009–2010 Iranian election protests. and there were reports of Syrian protesters hearing security-force members speaking
Persian.
The Guardian reported in May 2011 that the Iranian government was assisting the Syrian government with riot control equipment and intelligence monitoring techniques. According to US journalist
Geneive Abdo writing in September 2011, the Iranian government provided the Syrian government with technology to monitor e-mail, cell phones and social media. Iran developed these capabilities in the wake of the
2009 protests and spent millions of dollars establishing a "cyber army" to track down dissidents online. Iran's monitoring technology is believed to be among the most sophisticated in the world, perhaps only second to China.
2012 In May 2012, in an interview with the
Iranian Students News Agency which was later removed from its website, the deputy head of Iran's
Quds Force said that it had provided combat troops to support Syrian military operations. It was alleged by the Western media that Iran also trained fighters from
Hezbollah, a
Shia militant group based in Lebanon.
Iraq, located between Syria and Iran, was criticized by the U.S. for allowing Iran to ship military supplies to Assad over Iraqi airspace.
Haaretz said that Iran had, by February 2012, sent the Syrian government more than $1 billion to help it withstand
international sanctions. It has also shipped fuel to the country and sent two warships to a Syrian port in a display of power and support. In March 2012, anonymous U.S. intelligence officials claimed a spike in Iranian-supplied arms and other aid for the Syrian government. Iranian security officials also allegedly traveled to Damascus to help deliver this assistance. A second senior U.S. official said members of Iran's main intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, were assisting Syrian counterparts in charge of the crackdown. According to a U.N. panel in May 2012, Iran supplied the Syrian government with arms during the previous year despite a ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic. Turkish authorities captured crates and a truck in February 2012, including assault rifles, machine guns, explosives, detonators, 60 mm and 120 mm mortar shells as well as other items on its border. It was believed these were destined for the Syrian government. The confidential report leaked just hours after an article appeared in
The Washington Post revealing how Syrian opposition fighters started to receive more, and better, weapons in an effort paid for by Persian Gulf Arab states and co-ordinated partly by the US. The report investigated three large illegal shipments of Iranian weapons over the past year and stated "Iran has continued to defy the international community through illegal arms shipments. Two of these cases involved [Syria], as were the majority of cases inspected by the Panel during its previous mandate, underscoring that Syria continues to be the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers." More anonymous sources were cited by the UN in May 2012, as it claimed arms were moving both ways between Lebanon and Syria, and alleged weapons brought in from Lebanon were being used to arm the opposition. The alleged spike in Iranian arms was likely a response to a looming influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels from Gulf states that had been reported shortly before. On 24 July 2012, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp commander Massoud Jazayeri said Iranians would not allow enemy plans to change Syria's political system to succeed. In August 2012,
Leon Panetta accused Iran of setting up a pro-Government militia to fight in Syria, and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General
Martin Dempsey compared it to the
Mahdi Army of Iraqi Shia leader
Muqtada al-Sadr. Panetta said that there was evidence that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were attempting to "train a militia within Syria to be able to fight on behalf of the regime". 48 Iranians were captured by the FSA in Damascus, and U.S. officials said that the men who were captured were "active-duty Iranian Revolutionary Guard members". In September 2012, Western intelligence officials stated that Iran had sent 150 senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to preserve the Assad government, and had also sent hundreds of tons of military equipment (among them guns, rockets, and shells) to the Assad government via an air corridor that Syria and Iran jointly established. These officials believed that the intensification of Iranian support had led to increased effectiveness against the Free Syrian Army by the Assad government. According to rebel soldiers speaking in October 2012, Iranian
unmanned aerial vehicles had been used to guide Syrian military planes and gunners to bombard rebel positions.
CNN reported that the UAV or drones—which the rebels refer to as "wizwayzi" were "easily visible from the ground and seen in video shot by rebel fighters". Rebels have displayed captured aircraft they describe as Iranian-built drones — brightly colored, pilotless jets. They're accompanied by training manuals emblazoned with the image of Iran's revolutionary
leader, the late
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
2013 In January 2013, a prisoner swap took place between the Syrian Rebels and the Syrian Government authorities. According to reports, 48 Iranians were released by the Rebels in exchange for nearly 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian Government. Rebels claimed the captives were linked to the IRGC.
US State Department spokeswoman
Victoria Nuland described the Iranians as "members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," calling it "just another example of how Iran continues to provide guidance, expertise, personnel, technical capabilities to the Syrian regime." Iran decided in June 2013 to send 4,000 troops to aid the Syrian government forces, described as a "first contingent" by
Robert Fisk of
The Independent, who added that the move underscored a Sunni vs.
Shiite alignment in the Middle East. IRGC soldiers, along with fellow Shi'ite forces from Hezbollah and members of Iran's
Basij militia participated in the capture of Qusair from rebel forces on 9 June 2013. In 2014, Iran increased its deployment of IRGC in Syria. A Syrian official called the severing of relations by Morsi "irresponsible" and said it was part of a move by the U.S. and Israel to exacerbate divisions in the region. According to American officials questioned by journalist
Dexter Filkins, officers from the Quds force have "coordinated attacks, trained militias, and set up an elaborate system to monitor rebel communications" in Syria from late 2012 to 2013. With help from the Hezbollah, and under the leadership of Quds Force general
Qasem Soleimani, the Assad government won back strategic territory from rebels in 2013, in particular an important supply route during the
Al-Qusayr offensive in April and May. In the fall of 2013 Iranian Brigadier General
Mohammad Jamali-Paqaleh of the Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria, while volunteering to defend a Shia shrine. In February, General
Hassan Shateri, also of the Revolutionary Guards, had been killed while travelling from Beirut to Damascus.
2014 Iran has stepped up support on the ground for Syrian President Assad, providing hundreds more military specialists to gather intelligence and train troops. This further backing from
Tehran, along with deliveries of munitions and equipment from Moscow, is helping to keep Assad in power. A former
Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces commander said that "top Quds force commanders were tasked with advising and training Assad's military and his commanders", adding that "Revolutionary Guards directed the fighting on the instructions of the Quds Force commanders".
2015 The
Wall Street Journal reported on 2 October 2015 that Iran's Revolutionary Guard (the IRGC) has had some 7,000 IRGC members and Iranian paramilitary volunteers operating in Syria and was planning to expand its presence in the country through local fighters and proxies. The
Journal also reported that some experts estimate 20,000 Shiite foreign fighters are on the ground, backed by both Shiite Iran and Hezbollah. At least 121 IRGC troops, including several commanders, have been killed in the Syrian Civil War since it began. Key victories were achieved with substantial support provided by the Quds force, namely the al-Ghab plains battles,
Aleppo offensives, Dara'aya offensives of 2015 and the al-Qusayr offensives which established government and Hezbollah control over the northern
Qalamoun region and the border crossings from Lebanon to Syria. In June 2015, some reports suggested that the Iranian military were effectively in charge of the Syrian government troops on the battlefield. After the
loss of
Idlib province to a
rebel offensive in the first half of 2015, the situation was judged to have become critical for Assad's survival. High level talks were held between Moscow and Tehran in the first half of 2015 and a political agreement was achieved. On 24 July General Qasem Soleimani visited Moscow to devise the details of the plan for
coordinated military action in Syria. In mid-September 2015, the first reports of new detachments from the Iranian revolutionary guards arriving in
Tartus and Latakia in west Syria were made. With much of the Syrian Arab Army and National Defence Forces units deployed to more volatile fronts, the Russian Marines and Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG) have relieved their positions by installing military checkpoints inside the cities of Slunfeh (east Latakia Governorate),
Masyaf (East Tartus Governorate) and
Ras al-Bassit (Latakia coastal city). There were also further reports of new Iranian contingents being deployed to Syria in early October 2015. On 1 October 2015, citing two Lebanese sources, Reuters reported that hundreds of Iranian troops had arrived in Syria over the previous 10 days to join Syrian government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by
Russian air strikes that started on 30 September 2015 and were welcomed as vital by Bashar al-Assad. On 8 October 2015, brigadier general
Hossein Hamadani, the deputy to General
Qasem Soleimani in Syria was killed. On 12 October, two more senior commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamid Mokhtarband and Farshad Hassounizadeh, were reported by Iranian media to have been killed in Syria. At the end of October 2015, Iran agreed to take part in the
Syria peace talks in Vienna. The talks for the first time brought Iran to the negotiating table with Saudi Arabia, which are said to be engaged in a
proxy war in Syria. The talks however were promptly followed by an exchange of sharp rebukes between Iran's and Saudi Arabia's top officials that cast doubt on Iran's future participation in those.
2016 In November 2016, Iranian government announced the deaths of over a thousand of its military troops deployed to Syria, a rapid spike from the 400 deaths announced a few months earlier.
2017 In June 2017, Iran attacked militants' targets in the
Deir Ezzor area in eastern Syria with
ballistic missiles fired from western Iran. As a result of these attacks (in an operation which was named as the missile operation of "Laylat al-Qadr"), more than 170 forces of ISIS among a number of its commanders were killed.
2018 of Iran
Ali Khamenei in a meeting with Syrian Islamic scholars, six years before the
Fall of the Assad regime (3 March 2018) In May 2018, Iranian Quds forces based in Syria launched a 20 rockets attack on Israel. None of the rockets hit any targets and Israeli aircraft responded by extensively hitting both Syrian and Iranian military sites in Syria.
2019 In January 2019, the
Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it had carried out strikes against Iranian military targets in Syria several hours after a rocket was intercepted over the Golan Heights. The Israeli military claimed in a statement that Quds Force positions were targeted and included a warning to the
Syrian military against "attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory."
2020 and
Lebanon in 2021 Between 27 February and 3 March, 4 Iranians were killed by Turkish forces. On 7 March, an IRGC commander, Farhad Dabirian, was reported to be killed a day earlier in the
Sayyidah Zaynab neighborhood in Damascus, without giving details on the circumstances of his death. On 18 March, it was announced that an Iranian commander, Mehran Azizani, was killed by
Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. On 15 May, it was announced that another commander, Abu al-Fadl Sarlak, was killed, probably by an Israeli airstrike in
Khanasir.
2021 After a year of cease-fire deals and emergence of a frozen conflict, many high-ranking members of the
Ba'athist leadership like
Maher al-Assad and First Lady
Asma al-Assad has been seeking the end of Iranian military presence and demanding the withdrawal of Shia militias. This was part of their reconciliation plan with other Arab countries of the region. Head of
IRGC in Syria, Javad Ghaffari, was dismissed by
Bashar al-Assad in November 2021 to curtail Iranian influence in regime-held territories; demonstrating growing resentment within government circles over continued Iranian presence.
2024 On 6 December, amid the collapse of Syrian government forces due to the
rebel offensive launched in late November, the Iranian government began evacuating military commanders and personnel from Syria. Among those evacuated included several Quds Forces commanders, IRGC members, diplomatic staff and their families as well as Iranian citizens. Flights to Tehran, as well as land routes to Lebanon, Iraq and the
port of Latakia were being utilized to transport the outgoing Iranians from the country. ==Public opinion==