The head of Iran's veterans' affairs office on Tuesday (November 22nd) said more than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of the Syrian regime have been killed in the conflict, AFP reported.
In a report carried by Tasnim news agency, Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs head Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati said "the number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000".
Mahalati did not specify the nationalities of those killed.
Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with the Syrian regime's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines".
Iran denies having fighters in Syria, and insists the commanders and generals of its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) foreign operations wing act as "military advisers".
Iranian media regularly report on the death of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani "martyrs" in Syria, whose bodies are buried in Iran.
