Seven Ways Iran Spends its Money in the Syrian War

Fighters run for cover as a tank shell explodes during heavy fighting in Syria. (Reuters)
Fighters run for cover as a tank shell explodes during heavy fighting in Syria. (Reuters)
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Seven Ways Iran Spends its Money in the Syrian War

Fighters run for cover as a tank shell explodes during heavy fighting in Syria. (Reuters)
Fighters run for cover as a tank shell explodes during heavy fighting in Syria. (Reuters)

“Get out of Syria! Think about our plight!” This was one of the slogans canted during last December’s nationwide protests in more than 100 Iranian cities.

Seven years ago when Iran started getting involved in the Syrian conflict the narrative promoted by the authorities was that Iran was going there to protect “the Shi’ite holy shrines” against attacks by “Sunni extremists”, a defensive strategy, and would not become involved in the broader struggle for power between regime leader Bashar al-Assad and his opponents. Falling victim to mission creep, however, Iran was quickly re-cast as the chief guarantor of the survival of the regime, an objective labeled as “vital” for Iran’s own security.

Russia’s involvement two years after the Syrian conflict had started, and President Vladimir Putin’s quick emergence as the key setter of agenda in Syria, punctured the myth of Iran as the key player in Syria. That, in turn, has inspired complaints, at first sotto voce, but more recently openly, about the reasons for what Islamic Majlis member Mahmoud Sadeqi in Tehran has dubbed “our Syrian adventure.”

President Hassan Rouhani has tried to re-tell the Syrian story by claiming that Iran was showing a high degree of altruism by helping “our Syrian brothers in need.”

“Even in harsh circumstances we cut our own needs in order to help our Syrian brothers,” he said last month.

With the high number of human losses sustained by Iran and “allies” including Lebanese, Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries admitted officially, the question that people now ask is focused on the financial cost of “our Syrian adventure.”

Iran’s financial commitments in Syria could be divided into seven categories.

The first consists of the value of arms and other military materiel supplied by Iran to forces supporting Assad. These include Iranian-made surface-to-surface missiles modeled on the Chinese Silkworms originally developed for use at sea. Another major item consists of armored cars of which Iran is reported to have delivered over 400 to replace losses sustained by Assad’s elite 4th Armored Division. According to estimates by researchers in Iran, Iran has also supplied Assad with over 500 pieces of Russian-made heavy artillery for use against urban centers.

Because of many of the arms supplied to Syria come from Iran’s own stocks, often dating back to years, it is hard to put a price on them. It is even possible that Iran has tried to recycle its old arms as part of a broader plan to renew its arsenal of weapons.

However, some analysts, including Reza Saberi, claim that arms supplied by Iran could be valued at around $1.2 billion.

The second item on Iran’s expenses’ list in Syria consists of delivery of oil and petroleum products to Assad forces. This is done in the context of a credit line that Iran has opened for Syria. The most credible figure cited by the Iranian media puts the size of that “line” at between $2-3 billion a year. The total “credit line” allows for up to $6 billion a year and includes food and medical supplies which Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has put at around $2.5 billion a year.

The third item in Iran’s “Syria expenses” list consists of what the central Bank of Iran calls “transfer funds”. This means Iran exporting a certain quantity of its own oil on behalf of Syria with the understanding that Syria will repay in due course in an interest-free arrangement.

According to Jesse Shahin, spokesman for the office of Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations’ Special emissary on Syria, the “transfer funds” amounts to Iran giving the Assad regime an average of $6 billion a year, sums largely spent on paying civil servants and the forces still more or less loyal to the regime.

The fourth item in Iran’s expenses consists of “emergency funds” made in 2012 and 2103. According to Nadim Shehadah, professor at the Tufts University in the US, cited by BBC researcher Ali Qadimi, that amounted to $14-15 billion.

Tehran sources say the “emergency funds” were disbursed with the help of Austrian and Italian private banks over 30 months in tranches of $300 to $1.2 billion.

The fifth item of Iranian expense consist of funds needed to maintain several paramilitary forces made up of “volunteers for martyrdom” from Afghanistan, Pakistan and, in much smaller numbers, Iraq. The umbrella organ for these forces is the so-called Fatemiyoun Division, formerly a brigade, which was built up to 12,000 men in 2016.

At the time, General Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Corps, the organ that is supposed to coordinate Iranian operations in Syria, claimed that “volunteers for martyrdom” received no more than $100 a month in cash.

However, several Majlis members, speaking on condition of anonymity, claim that the payment is closer to $1,000 a month as Quds Corps also pays “subsistence pay” to families of the “volunteers for martyrdom.” All in all, the Fatemiyoun Division and ancillaries cost Iran around $1 billion a year. That does not include the $800 million paid annually to the Lebanese branch of “Hezbollah” led by Hassan Nasrallah.

A sixth source of income to finance the war on Assad’s side is provided by what Tehran terms bilateral trade. Much of this, of course, is more in the nature of transit trade with Iranian companies selling Syria’s oil and gas and phosphate to third countries. According to General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, in addition to that trade Iran has won a major mobile phone contract in Syria with the prospect of creating a major new source of income to finance the war.

A major source of income for Assad consisted of money spent by over 1.2 million Iranian pilgrims, who visited Syria each year prior to 2011. However, the flow of pilgrims has almost completely dried up with Iranians preferring to visit “holy shrines” in Iraq. Meanwhile, some of the infrastructure, including over 100 hotels, built with Iranian money have either been badly damaged or left abandoned in previously peaceful areas turned into battlefields.

According to some studies, Iran’s losses on that score could be put at over $2 billion as much of the infrastructure may no longer be recoverable.

A seventh source item of cost for the Syrian war is represented by what Iran spends on keeping around 13,000 of its own troops, often presented as advisers or technicians, in Syria. No official figures are available. But if Iranian troops in Syria receive the same treatment as comparable military ranks inside Iran itself the annual cost could be around $3 billion in salaries and upkeep, not taking into account the cost of weapons and materiel used. The most conservative estimate would see Iran spending an average of $12.7 billion a year in Syria of which less than $2 billion may be recovered in trade deals using Syrian energy and raw material.

According to Tehran sources, part of the funds needed is raised through a special one per cent tariff imposed on all car imports in Iran with the proceeds credited to a special “Resistance Account” controlled by the office of the “Supreme Guide”.

Another source of funds is provided by “voluntary donations” supposedly for the defense or rebuilding of “shrines ”. Under that scheme 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces are assigned quotas to fulfill by raising funds from local businesses and through donations collected at mosques and bazaars. Provinces with a Sunnis majority are excluded from the scheme. As these “donations” are collected by local Friday prayer leaders, it is hard to know what percentage is actually transferred to the central fund and how much is kept by the involved clerics themselves.

Tehran University Professor Sadeq Ziba-Kalam recently invited the leadership in Tehran to review involvement in Syria. He was rewarded with a prison sentence of 18 months.

Nevertheless, many Iranians are beginning to realize that Syria is a costly war, both in terms of human losses and financial burden. And that, some analysts, believe is already encouraging a re-think of what some Iranians regard as a losing strategy.



Gaza Aid System Under Pressure as Thousands Seek Food

Palestinians walk next to a donkey-drawn cart loaded with aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, near an area of Gaza known as the Netzarim corridor, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Palestinians walk next to a donkey-drawn cart loaded with aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, near an area of Gaza known as the Netzarim corridor, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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Gaza Aid System Under Pressure as Thousands Seek Food

Palestinians walk next to a donkey-drawn cart loaded with aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, near an area of Gaza known as the Netzarim corridor, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Palestinians walk next to a donkey-drawn cart loaded with aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, near an area of Gaza known as the Netzarim corridor, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

After a slow and chaotic start to the new US-backed aid system in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians have been arriving at distribution points, seeking desperately needed food despite scenes of disorder and fears of violence.

The two hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private group sponsored by the United States and endorsed by Israel, have been running since Tuesday, but the launch was marred by tumultuous scenes when thousands rushed the fences and forced private contractors providing security to retreat.

An Israeli military official told Reuters that the GHF was now operating four aid distribution sites, three in the Rafah area in the south and one in the Netzarim area in central Gaza.

The new system has been heavily criticized by the United Nations and other aid groups as an inadequate and flawed response to the humanitarian crisis left by Israel's 11-week blockade on aid entering Gaza.

Wessam Khader, a 25-year-old father of a three-year-old boy, said he had gone to a site near Rafah, despite widespread suspicions of the new system among Palestinians and warnings from militant group Hamas to stay away.

He said he had gone every day since Tuesday but only obtained a 3 kg (6.6 pounds) package containing flour, canned sardines, salt, noodles, biscuits and jam on the first day.

"I was driven by the hunger, for several weeks we had no flour, we had nothing in the tent," he told Reuters by telephone from Rafah. "My son wakes every day asking for something to eat and I can't give him."

When he arrived with his father and brother, there were thousands there already and no sign of the identification process that Israeli officials had said would be in place to screen out anyone considered to have links to Hamas.

"I didn't see anything, no one asked for me for anything, and if there was an electronic gate or screening I think it collapsed under the feet of the crowds," he said. The gates, the wire fences were all brought down and even plastic pipes, metal boards and fencing material was carried off.

"People were hungry and they took everything at the site," he said.

Earlier this week, GHP said it had anticipated such reactions from a "distressed population".

For Palestinians in northern Gaza, cut off from the distribution points in the south even that remains out of reach.

"We see videos about the aid, and people getting some, but they keep saying no trucks can enter north where we live," said Ghada Zaki, a 52-year-old mother of seven in Gaza City, told Reuters via chat app.

AIR STRIKES

Israel imposed the blockade at the beginning of March, saying supplies were being stolen by Hamas and used to entrench its control over Gaza. Hamas denies stealing aid and says it has protected aid trucks from looters. Even as thousands made their way to the distribution site, Israeli jets continued to pound areas of Gaza, killing at least 45 people on Thursday, including 23 people in a strike that hit several houses in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers said.

The Israeli military said it hit dozens of targets in Gaza overnight, including what it said were weapons storage dumps, sniper positions and tunnels. Speculation around a possible ceasefire agreement grew after US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said the White House was preparing a draft document that could provide the basis for an agreement.

However, it was unclear what changes to previous proposals were being considered that might overcome the deep differences between Hamas and Israel that have stymied previous attempts to restore a ceasefire deal that broke down in March after only two months.

Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm completely and be dismantled as a military and governing force and that all of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza must come back before it will agree to end the war.

Hamas has rejected the demand to give up its weapons and says Israel must commit to ending the war for a deal to work.

Israel has come under increasing international pressure, with many European countries that have normally been reluctant to criticize Israel openly demanding an end to the war and a major humanitarian relief effort.