As Syria's war nears the start of its fourth year, Iran has stepped up support on the ground for President Bashar al-Assad, providing elite teams to gather intelligence and train troops, sources with knowledge of military movements say.
This further backing from Tehran, along with deliveries of munitions and equipment from Moscow, is helping to keep Assad in power at a time when neither his own forces nor opposition fighters have a decisive edge on the battlefield.
Assad's forces have failed to capitalize fully on advances they made last summer with the help of Iran, his major backer in the region, and the Hezbollah fighters that Tehran backs and which have provided important battlefield support for Assad.
But the Syrian leader has drawn comfort from the withdrawal of the threat of US bombing raids following a deal under which he has agreed to give up his chemical weapons.
Shi'te Iran has already spent billions of dollars propping up Assad in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states. And while the presence of Iranian military personnel in Syria is not new, military experts believe Tehran has in recent months sent in more specialists to enable Assad to outlast his enemies at home and abroad.
MILITARY SPECIALISTS
Assad is now benefiting from the deployment by Tehran of hundreds more military specialists to Syria, according to Iranian sources familiar with deployments of military personnel, Syrian opposition sources, and security experts.
These include senior commanders from the elite Quds Force, the external and secretive arm of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as IRGC members.
Their function is not to fight, but to direct and train Syrian forces and to assist in the gathering of intelligence, according to sources in Iran and outside.
ACROSS BORDERS
Iranian and Syrian opposition sources said personnel could enter Syria through the border with Turkey since Iranians did not need visas to enter Turkey. Others come in across the Iraqi border and more senior commanders fly in to Damascus.
A Turkish official said the number of Iranians crossing into Syria had increased in the last few months. Most had non-Iranian passports.
A Syrian opposition source said in recent months Iranian- led forces had begun operating in coastal areas including Tartous and Latakia. They have local ID cards, wear Syrian military fatigues and work with the elite Syrian air force intelligence unit.
The presence of units in coastal areas could not be independently corroborated. The Iranian sources declined to give details of where the forces were located.
WEAPONS LIFELINE
In recent weeks Syria has continued to receive arms and military equipment from Russia and via proxies, according to several sources. Those supplies included unmanned spy drones, guided bombs and spare parts for combat craft.
Moscow says it violates no international laws with its military supplies to Syria, which do not include offensive weapons.
Nic Jenzen-Jones, a military arms specialist and director of Armament Research Services, said Iranian-made Falaq-1 and Falaq-2 rocket launchers had been sent from Iran to Syria.
Jenzen-Jones added that relatively new Iranian small arms ammunition - produced in the last three to four years - had reached Syria recently.
A rebel fighter operating in Homs province with Islamist group Liwa al-Haq said opposition forces knew of Iranian planes flying into Hama airport in central Syria to deliver weapons.
A source in the international arms industry with knowledge of Middle Eastern weapons movements said Syria had received millions of rounds of ammunition for light weapons of late, much of it former eastern bloc material coming in by sea and air from the Black Sea area.
The Syrian opposition source said Latakia airport and port as well as the port in Tartous were used to bring in equipment.
Other supplies included machine guns and ammunition for artillery and tanks, the arms industry source said.
REUTERS