A senior Iranian militia commander, who has been operating in Syria since 2013, was killed in recent days in still uncertain circumstances.
“A prominent Iranian Revolutionary Guards leader has been killed in recent hours on Syrian soil, and he is one of the most prominent leaders of the Liwa Fatemiyoun militia,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported.
The Observatory identified him as Sayed Ahmed Qureshi.
Originally from the village of Baraghan, located north of Karaj in Iran, Qureshi previously served in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij force.
He had served in the Iranian-backed militia Liwa Fatemiyoun in Syria since 2013 and fought in several operations with slain IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
“Uncertainty still surrounds the circumstances of Qureshi’s killing,” said the Observatory, adding that he could have died from injuries sustained in a recent Israeli airstrike on Syria’s Homs countryside.
Earlier this month, the Observatory had documented the killing of another Iranian leader in a possible ISIS landmine explosion in Homs’ eastern countryside.
In other news, 51 regime officers and loyalist fighters were killed on Friday night in an ambush, the largest of its kind, launched by ISIS on several positions in the central and eastern Badia (desert) regions in Syria.
Activists said ISIS militants simultaneously attacked four military positions of the regime forces and loyalists.