Report: Iran building militias in Syria in case Assad falls
Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are building a
network of militias inside Syria to protect their interests in the event that
President Bashar regime collapses or is forced to withdraw from Damascus, the
Washington Post reported, citing US and Middle Eastern officials.
"It's a big operation," a senior Obama
administration official was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "The
immediate intention seems to be to support the Syrian regime. But it's
important for Iran to have a force in Syria that is reliable and can be counted
on."
A senior Arab official told The Washington Post that
Iran’s strategy has two tracks: "One is to support Assad to the hilt, the
other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses."
Western, Israeli and Middle Eastern elements have
expressed growing concern over the possibility of Syria's fragmentation along
tribal or religious lines and over the lack of unity among the Syrian
opposition.
According to the Washington Post, the militias set up by
Iran and Hezbollah are fighting alongside Syrian government forces to keep
Assad in power. However, the report said, officials believe Tehran's long-term
goal is to have reliable operatives in place in the event that Syria fractures
into separate ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
Each of Syria's internal actors has external backers, The
Washington Post stressed in its report.
According to the report, Tehran's interest in preserving
a Syrian base partly explains why the financially strapped Iranian government
continues to send weapons and cash to groups such as Jaysh al-Sha'bi, an
alliance of local Shiite and Alawite militias.
American and Middle Eastern officials who have studied
the organization told the Washington Post that Jaysh fighters are predominantly
a sectarian fighting force supervised by Iranian and Hezbollah commanders.
"Jaysh is essentially an Iran-Hezbollah joint
venture," David Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence at the Treasury Department, told the newspaper. "Given the
other constraints on Iranian resources right now, it's obvious that this is an
important proxy group for them."
The Treasury Department said Iran had provided it with
"routine funding worth millions of dollars."
A Treasury statement noted that Iran's Revolutionary
Guard commander has said that Jaysh was "modeled after Iran’s own Basij, a
paramilitary force subordinate to (Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps) that has
been heavily involved in the violent crackdowns and serious human rights abuses
occurring in Iran since the June 2009 contested presidential election."
Experts told The Washington Post that Iran is less
interested in preserving Assad in power than in maintaining levers of power,
including transport hubs inside Syria. As long as Tehran could maintain control
of an air or seaport, they could also maintain a Hezbollah-controlled supply
route into Lebanon and continue to manipulate Lebanese politics, the experts
argued.
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