{"id":30533,"date":"2016-11-23T01:38:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T01:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/iran-more-than-1-000-soldiers-die-in-syria-since\/"},"modified":"2016-11-23T01:38:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T01:38:54","slug":"iran-more-than-1-000-soldiers-die-in-syria-since","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/iran-more-than-1-000-soldiers-die-in-syria-since\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: More than 1,000 soldiers die in Syria since 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Tehran deploys its troops, as well as Afghan and Pakistani recruits, to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.}<\/p>\n<p>More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back government forces in the civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>The death toll was a major increase from one reported just four months ago when Iran announced 400 of its soldiers had died on Syria&#8217;s battlefields.<\/p>\n<p>Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of the more than five-year-old war to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against armed groups trying to topple him.<\/p>\n<p>Although many of the soldiers Iran sends are its own nationals, it is casting its recruitment net wide, training and deploying predominantly Shia-Muslim fighters from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Afghan citizens represented half the death toll reported in August.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now the number of Iran&#8217;s martyrs as defenders of the shrine has exceeded 1,000,&#8221; Mohammadali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Iran&#8217;s Foundation of Martyrs, which offers financial support to relatives of those killed fighting for Iran, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Iran alludes to its fighters in Syria as &#8220;defenders of the shrine&#8221;, a reference to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque near Damascus, which is where a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad is said to be buried, as well as other shrines revered by Shia. <\/p>\n<p>Many Iranians initially opposed involvement in Syria&#8217;s war, harbouring little sympathy for Assad. But now they are warming to the mission, believing ISIL&#8217;s threat to the existence of their country is best fought outside Iran&#8217;s borders.<\/p>\n<p>The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly escalated into a full-on armed conflict.<\/p>\n<p>The UN estimates more than 400,000 people have been killed, and 11 million Syrians &#8211; half the country&#8217;s pre-war population &#8211; have been displaced from their homes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-16577 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/34335673895b4eb299f8b97a875466b6_18.jpg\" alt=\"Iran has lost at least 1,000 fighters during its five-year military intervention in Syria\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Tehran deploys its troops, as well as Afghan and Pakistani recruits, to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.} More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back government forces in the civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said on Tuesday. The death toll was a major increase from one reported [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30533"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30533"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}