Iran’s Guards Use Aerial Guided-Missile Attacks to Back Regime Troops in Syria

Parading a drone in Iran. (Photo: Reuters)
Parading a drone in Iran. (Photo: Reuters)
TT

Iran’s Guards Use Aerial Guided-Missile Attacks to Back Regime Troops in Syria

Parading a drone in Iran. (Photo: Reuters)
Parading a drone in Iran. (Photo: Reuters)

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard had single-handedly introduced a new weapon when taking up arms side by side by Syria’s regime against ISIS in the Badia region.

Air-launched guided missile activity was registered--meanwhile, ISIS militiamen rebelled against commandership orders to implement the deal brokered with regime forces and withdraw from Hama’s eastern rural zone.

ISIS militants were given an order to exit Hama to Idlib.

A video clip broadcasted on Iran's Alalam News Network showed aircraft carrying guided missiles and said they belonged to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Missiles targeted Badia posts in Syria, without specifying any locations. Other Iranian outlets reported that the attacks took place near the Syrian-Iraqi border and destroyed vehicles, military equipment, and ammunition.

Syrian opposition sources based in Deir al-Zour said that Iranian aircraft hovered over south-eastern Damascus countryside reaching all the way to the west of Abu Kamal area in Deir al-Zor border with Iraq.

Iranian aerial activity in the area near Deir al-Zour is recent -- usually, surveillance aircraft belong to Syrian regime forces and Russian air fleets, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Tehran had insisted on openly broadcasting employing new weapons in Syria.

In parallel to the launch of short-range missiles from Iran to the Deir al-Zour area last summer, Tehran announced the launch of drones nearby coalition forces present at the US occupied al-Tanf base in Syria but did not announce the use of guided missiles launched by aircraft already running.

The video showed two simultaneous images of the missile's trajectory: the first taken from a camera installed in the front, the second from a reconnaissance aircraft. Among hit targets was a tank, which means that the guided missiles are anti-armor.

On that note, the US military destroyed an Iranian reconnaissance plane that tried to approach the Al-Tanf camp.

Al-Tanf military base is used by the Washington-led coalition to train rebels belonging to the "Free Syrian Army" to fight against ISIS terrorists centered near the Syrian-Iraqi border.



Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladesh said three student leaders had been taken into custody for their own safety after the government blamed their protests against civil service job quotas for days of deadly nationwide unrest.

Students Against Discrimination head Nahid Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were Friday forcibly discharged from hospital and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

The street rallies organized by the trio precipitated a police crackdown and days of running clashes between officers and protesters that killed at least 201 people, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

Islam earlier this week told AFP he was being treated at the hospital in the capital Dhaka for injuries sustained during an earlier round of police detention.

Police had initially denied that Islam and his two colleagues were taken into custody before home minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed it to reporters late on Friday.

"They themselves were feeling insecure. They think that some people were threatening them," he said.

"That's why we think for their own security they needed to be interrogated to find out who was threatening them. After the interrogation, we will take the next course of action."

Khan did not confirm whether the trio had been formally arrested.

Days of mayhem last week saw the torching of government buildings and police posts in Dhaka, and fierce street fights between protesters and riot police elsewhere in the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government deployed troops, instituted a nationwide internet blackout and imposed a curfew to restore order.

- 'Carried out raids' -

The unrest began when police and pro-government student groups attacked street rallies organized by Students Against Discrimination that had remained largely peaceful before last week.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location to be tortured before he was released the next morning.

His colleague Asif Mahmud, also taken into custody at the hospital on Friday, told AFP earlier that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Police have arrested at least 4,500 people since the unrest began.

"We've carried out raids in the capital and we will continue the raids until the perpetrators are arrested," Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker told AFP.

"We're not arresting general students, only those who vandalized government properties and set them on fire."