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Arafat Chose to Fight for 6 Months... Moscow’s Position Was his Greatest Disappointment 

Asharq Al-Awsat publishes recollections of influential players during 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut. 

Smoke billows from strikes during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. (Getty Images)
Smoke billows from strikes during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. (Getty Images)
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Arafat Chose to Fight for 6 Months... Moscow’s Position Was his Greatest Disappointment 

Smoke billows from strikes during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. (Getty Images)
Smoke billows from strikes during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. (Getty Images)

On this day in 1982, Beirut was besieged by the Israeli army and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat boarded a ship that took him to his new exile in Tunisia. The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s loss of its last front with Israel would leave its mark on the Palestinians and Lebanon.

As Israel tightened its siege of Beirut, Arafat took a secret decision to carry on fighting for six months until regional and international stances emerged. He was forced to leave Lebanon after 88 days, marking an end of what he described as the “longest Arab-Israeli war.”

The greatest disappointment to the Palestinian resistance and its allies in the Lebanese National Movement came from their Soviet ally. Moscow had refused to deliver a serious warning or send a destroyer off the Lebanese coast or a ship to evacuate the wounded.

Arafat’s insistence that he leave Lebanon by sea, not through Damascus, reflected the extent of the differences between him and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) Ahmed Jibril recalled that Arafat had bluntly told him that the Syrian leadership will not be credited for him holding out for three months in Beirut.

Asharq Al-Awsat will publish a series of features highlighting the significant developments and recollections of influential players during that heated summer of 1982.

From a building in east Beirut, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon observed Arafat as he boarded the ship that would take him to Tunisia. He wrongly believed that had broken the Palestinian resistance and that it would fade away in exile. The invasion failed in luring Lebanon to strike a peace deal with Israel. The current Lebanon has an even more hardline position towards Israel.

Against the backdrop of the war, Syria and Iran will lay the foundation of their alliance. Hezbollah would be born in Lebanon. Syria, which had withdrawn its troops from Beirut in wake of the invasion, would redeploy them years later, before again being forced to pull them out in 2005 after the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

In the besieged city, I was determined to record the testimonials of influential political and security figures. I tried to obtain Arafat’s testimony, but he turned down the offer, saying he didn’t want the Palestinian people to be punished “because of his memories.”

In Tunisia, Arafat told me: “What do you want me to recount? To tell you about Sabri al-Banna (Abou Nidal), who was hosted by three Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus and Tripoli, and who was obsessed with assassinating Palestinians, not Israelis?”

“Do you want me to tell you about the so-called intifada in Fatah that was backed by Syria and funded by Libya? Or do you want me to complain about the practices of Palestinian groups that tarnished our image of resistance or led to our labeling as terrorists? I’m not saying that Fatah was faultless. We all made mistakes, but we always tried not to lose our way and lose our cause.”

“The Palestinian people have been punished a lot. They were punished for clinging on to their cause and for firing the first shot. (...) The PLO was punished for adopting a hard line and punished when it adopted a moderate approach. Do you want the Palestinian people to be punished because of my memoirs? I don’t want to open old wounds.”

“As I was leaving Beirut, a journalist asked me: ‘Where to?’ I replied: ‘To Jerusalem. We are preparing for our date in Palestine and Jerusalem. We don’t have any other place to be.’”

The KGB general and Iran

In 1980, Palestinian ambassador to Tehran and Fatah central committee member Hani al-Hassan received an urgent call to head to Beirut. Upon his arrival, Arafat told him they were headed to a meeting at the Soviet embassy. Hassan understood that he needed to voice Arafat’s views. He knew how influential the Soviets were in the Palestinian revolution. He knew of the consequences of refusing delicate Soviet proposals.

Other Fatah members at the meeting included Salah Khalaf (Abou Ayad) and Khalil al-Wazir (Abou Jihad). The Soviets were represented by General “Alexander” who was the KGB official overseeing operations in the Middle East. The insistence that Palestinian leaders, not their representatives, be present at the meeting meant that Moscow expected the talks to yield a decision.

General “Alexander” spoke about the situation in the region, especially Iran, in wake of the Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan. He said the time had come for the Palestinians to cooperate with the Soviets to facilitate the Communist Party’s control of Iran. The Soviet Union wanted to expand its power in the region and Iran was a significant prize given its geographic location and resources.

Hassan was surprised with the proposal and asked to be excused from the meeting, but Arafat refused. Hassan said he would not stand against the Iranian revolution that had “offered us several major services,” referring to its severing of Iranian-Israeli relations that were forged under the shah.

Tensions soon erupted and the Soviet general declared that the Palestinians “won’t be able to do anything without us.” Hassan replied: “If the Soviets enter Iran, then Israel’s strategic value will grow a million-fold to the West. So, don’t even think about it. For our part, we will ensure that every effort is made to form good Iranian-Soviet relations.”

Hassan believed that the meeting exposed how the Soviets dealt with the situations in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and future conflicts in these countries.

Meeting in a Soviet forest

Another significant meeting was held years earlier. In the early 1970s, head of the PFLP’s External Operations Wadie Haddad met with KGB chief Yuri Andropov in a forest on the outskirts of Moscow. The meeting was held in utmost secrecy because Haddad at the time had been planning plane hijacking operations for years. Haddad asked for weapons from the Soviets, and they were smuggled to him off the coast of Aden, Yemen.

The first high-level contacts between Moscow and the Palestinian revolution took place in 1968 at the suggestion of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser and Arafat traveled to Moscow together on a secret visit. Two years later, a Soviet envoy met with Arafat in Jordan and the relations between the Palestinians and Soviets came out to the open.

Moscow realized the importance of relations with the Palestinians so it forged ties that allowed it in a few years to wield influence in Palestinian political and security decisions. Moscow formed close ties with the Palestinian left, including the PFLP, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and leftists in the Fatah movement.

These relations led the Palestinian resistance and allied parties in Lebanon to rule out the possibility of Israel invading Beirut. It had already launched its invasion on June 6, 1982, and was advancing on the capital. On the day of the invasion, the Fatah and Lebanese National Movement met in Beirut. Present were Abou Ammar, Abou Jihad, Abou Ayad, Abou al-Walid, Secretary General of the Lebanese Communist Party George Hawi and Secretary General of the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon Mohsen Ibrahim.

They discussed the possibility that the invasion could go beyond southern Lebanon, especially with Sharon as defense minister. They never predicted, however, that the Israeli forces would advance on Beirut and reach its outskirts because Syrian troops were in the capital and any clash with the Israelis could lead to a full-scale war between them. They believed that Israel would not provoke Syria, an ally of Moscow.

They were proven wrong when the Israeli army was met with little resistance and eventually besieged Beirut. It was later revealed that the Soviets and their allies did not have information about the Israeli plans. The Syrians were also in the dark.

Meeting with Bashir Gemayel

When the Israeli forces reached the Chouf area in Mount Lebanon and appeared intent on Beirut, a secret meeting was held between Abou Ammar al-Hassan, head of the Lebanese Forces Bashir al-Gemayel and Lebanese military intelligence chief Johnny Abdo. Gemayel wanted to hold the meeting to deliver a message to Arafat that the Palestinians must lay down their arms and leave Lebanon. “I am ready to secure a safe and dignified exit. I want an immediate answer before the Israelis reach Beirut,” he said. Hassan suggested that they take their conversation to the balcony because they feared Abdo’s house would be wiretapped.

Hassan noticed how worried Gemayel appeared. He told him: “Let me speak to you frankly. I follow you and it is my duty to follow you. I know you have presidential ambitions, but you won’t achieve them this way. You were the one who paved the way for the Syrians so that they could strike the Palestinians. Now, you have brought in the Israelis so that they can strike them both.”

“At the end of this game, we will both be struck, and you will be finished. Lebanon is enticing. Neither the Israelis, nor the Syrians will pull out. You are opposed to both of them. Let me repeat, you are mistaken in thinking this is the way that will lead you to the presidency. Your odds will be better if you decide to side with us and the Lebanese National Movement.”

“Who will agree to hosting the Palestinian fighters? Jordan, Syria or others? He vowed that he will ensure that a small number of fighters would remain and they would answer to the Lebanese army. The game slipped from his hands when the Israelis reached Beirut.”

Hassan later informed Mohsen about the meeting. Mohsen then met with Arafat and Hawi. They were primarily concerned with determining whether Moscow could stop the invasion. Hawi, with his close ties to the Soviets, believed that striking the Palestinian revolution was a red line for both sides the Soviets and Communists. After a month or so, he realized that everything was permissible, and nothing was off limits. Arab countries had no way of influencing international powers.

Hawi was hoping Moscow would threaten Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. He hoped they would send a naval vessel off the coast of Beirut or at least evacuate the wounded. Soviet ambassador to Beirut Alexander Soldatov could promise nothing of the sort. Hawi kept relaying these disappointing stances to Arafat. Hawi and others could not believe that the Soviets would stand idly by as Israel invaded Lebanon.

Arafat was dealt a crushing blow during a meeting with Soldatov. The ambassador told Arafat to leave Beirut, even if he had to board an American destroyer. Arafat was incredulous and refused to leave. He would eventually relent when it appeared that the Soviets would not support him or stand against the Israelis.

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Four Iranian Narratives on the Collapse of the ‘Resistance’ in Syria  

Iran's General Qassem Soleimani makes a phone call near the historic Citadel of Aleppo, winter 2016. (Fars)
Iran's General Qassem Soleimani makes a phone call near the historic Citadel of Aleppo, winter 2016. (Fars)
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Four Iranian Narratives on the Collapse of the ‘Resistance’ in Syria  

Iran's General Qassem Soleimani makes a phone call near the historic Citadel of Aleppo, winter 2016. (Fars)
Iran's General Qassem Soleimani makes a phone call near the historic Citadel of Aleppo, winter 2016. (Fars)

One hundred and ninety-two days separated the last meeting between Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Syria’s ousted President Bashar al-Assad in Tehran from the moment the Syrian regime fell to the opposition in December 2024.

That interval was no footnote in the Syrian war. It became a sharp mirror inside Tehran, reflecting the magnitude of the wager Iran’s leadership had placed on Assad, and the limits of its ability to anticipate the trajectory of the conflict and shifts in the regional balance of power.

At that meeting, Khamenei laid out the essence of his “Syrian doctrine” amid changing realities across the “Axis of Resistance.” Syria, he argued, was no ordinary state but one with a “special place” because its identity, in his view, stemmed from its role in this axis.

Since “resistance is Syria’s defining identity and must be preserved,” he addressed Assad not as a political ally but as a partner in that identity. He praised Assad for once saying that “the cost of resistance is lower than the cost of compromise” and that “whenever we retreat, the other side advances.” Thus, Khamenei reaffirmed his full - if belated – gamble on the regime’s survival, even as signs of collapse were unmistakable on the ground.

Less than seven months later, the regime would fall. Assad’s collapse would yield several Iranian narratives: the Supreme Leader’s, the Revolutionary Guard’s, the diplomatic narrative, and a fourth voiced from within the system itself, one that raised blunt questions about the price of Iran’s Syrian gamble.

Khamenei’s narrative

In his first speech after Assad’s fall, Khamenei offered a hard-edged explanation: the event, he said, was the product of a “joint American-Zionist plot,” aided by neighboring states. He spoke of factors that he claimed prevented Iran from providing the necessary support, including Israeli and US strikes inside Syria and the closure of air and land corridors to Iranian supplies.

He concluded that the decisive flaw lay within Syria itself, where the “spirit of resistance” had eroded in state institutions.

He stressed that the regime’s fall did not mean the fall of the idea of “resistance,” predicting that “patriotic Syrian youth” would one day revive it in a new form.

This narrative rejects the notion of strategic defeat: for Khamenei, what happened is not the end of the struggle, but a harsh phase in a longer one.

Revolutionary Guard’s narrative

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) adopted a language closer to national security logic than pure ideology, though it drew from the same lexicon. In 2013, cleric Mehdi Taeb, head of the IRGC’s Ammar Headquarters think tank, framed the equation starkly: “Syria is our 35th province... If the enemy attacks Syria or Khuzestan, our priority is to keep Syria.”

With that shocking sentence, Syria was elevated to the level of Iranian strategic geography, sometimes above parts of Iran itself.

Late General Qassem Soleimani, then commander of the Quds Force, became the chief architect of this approach: confronting threats abroad by building multinational militia networks and using the “protection of shrines” as a mobilizing slogan that fused ideology with national security calculations.

A month after Assad’s fall, at a memorial for Soleimani, Khamenei reaffirmed this school of thought, linking the defense of shrines in Damascus and Iraq to the defense of “Iran as a sanctuary,” aiming to bind various fronts into a single cross-border security-sectarian struggle.

After the Syrian regime’s collapse, this narrative preserved its core: success or failure is not defined by who sits in Damascus, but by whether the IRGC’s influence networks remain intact and whether Iran still has access to Syrian depth.

Full withdrawal would amount, in this logic, to admitting that the “35th province” had slipped from the map, so the IRGC will continue to search for any possible foothold.

Diplomatic narrative

Iran’s diplomatic apparatus sought to tell a softer story. Weeks before the fall, Khamenei dispatched his adviser Ali Larijani to Damascus and Beirut with reassuring messages for Assad and other allies, publicly asserting that events in Syria and Lebanon “directly concern Iran’s national security.”

Days later, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Damascus just six days before the collapse, even posing with shawarma in a downtown restaurant to signal “normalcy” and dismiss talk of impending downfall as “psychological warfare.”

It was the peak of the gap between diplomatic messaging and a disintegrating reality.

Afterward, the Foreign Ministry adopted a defensive formula: Iran had “responded to the request of an allied government”, but “cannot decide on behalf of peoples.” Thus, responsibility was shifted toward Syrian internal failures and the external “conspiracy” often invoked by Khamenei.

This narrative treats Syria as one file among many, not an existential arena as seen by the IRGC and the Leader.

‘Open account’ narrative

The fourth narrative emerged, unexpectedly, from within the establishment itself. For the first time, semi-public acknowledgments surfaced that the economic return on Iran’s Syrian adventure was nearly nil and that the political-security “investment” had resulted in something resembling a net loss.

In 2020, former member of the Iranian parliamentary national security and foreign policy committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh revealed that Tehran had spent “$20-30 billion” in Syria, insisting: “This is the people’s money and must be recovered.”

Five years later, he returned with a more bitter charge: Syria’s debts to Iran were effectively settled through “land without oil, cow farms without cows, and empty promises.”

This view is no outlier. Over a decade, Iranian protest slogans increasingly linked “Gaza, Lebanon, Syria” with bread, fuel, and economic hardship at home.

With Assad gone, critics more easily argue that Iran spent tens of billions and paid a human cost among its fighters and proxies, only to end up with almost no influence in Damascus.

For decision-makers, this narrative becomes domestic pressure against any large-scale return to Syria.

Four scenarios for Tehran

Taken together, these narratives reveal a deep contradiction: the IRGC and Khamenei refuse to concede that Iran “lost Syria,” treating the episode as one phase in a longer struggle. Meanwhile, the diplomatic and economic narratives acknowledge, implicitly, that the previous intervention model is no longer sustainable.

Four broad scenarios emerge. The first is a return through proxies, closest to the IRGC’s logic: Iran would rebuild influence from the ground up through militias - old or newly recruited - to pressure any future authority in Damascus.

The second is regional repositioning without Syria, in which Iran shifts resources to arenas where it still holds leverage, including Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza, while limiting its role in Syria to preventing hostile entrenchment.

The third is a “gray” re-entry: a gradual, negotiated, non-confrontational return through localized deals or modest economic and security projects, allowing Tehran to claim continued presence without the cost of backing a single ruler.

The fourth is institutionalizing the loss: Iran accepts Syria’s departure from its strategic depth, but repackages the outcome within a narrative of “conspiracy and steadfastness,” using it to tighten internal control while maintaining symbolic presence through shrine rhetoric and minimal diplomacy.

Across all scenarios, one fact remains. Syria, which was once described as more vital than Khuzestan and the “distinct identity of resistance”, is no longer what it was before December 8, 2024 when the regime collapsed.

Tehran can invoke time, the IRGC can search for openings, diplomats can polish their statements, and critics can lament “land without oil.” But one question looms over every debate in Iran: Can Tehran afford a second Syrian-sized gamble after emerging from the first still trying to convince itself that the “resistance factor” remains standing, even as its Syrian pillar has broken?

Features

A Year After Assad’s Fall, Families of Missing Detainees Languish without Answers 

Amina Beqai holds a photo of her husband, who went missing after he was arrested by security forces under the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, November 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Amina Beqai holds a photo of her husband, who went missing after he was arrested by security forces under the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, November 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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A Year After Assad’s Fall, Families of Missing Detainees Languish without Answers 

Amina Beqai holds a photo of her husband, who went missing after he was arrested by security forces under the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, November 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Amina Beqai holds a photo of her husband, who went missing after he was arrested by security forces under the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, November 23, 2025. (Reuters)

A year after dictator Bashar al-Assad's ouster in Syria, little has changed in Amina Beqai's desperate quest. She types her missing husband's name yet again into an internet search box, hoping for answers to a 13-year-old question. In vain.

Beqai has nowhere else to turn.

A National Commission for Missing Persons established in May has been gathering evidence of enforced disappearances under Assad, but has yet to offer families any clues on the estimated 150,000 people who vanished in his notorious prisons.

They include Beqai's husband Mahmoud, arrested by Syria's security forces at their home near Damascus on April 17, 2012, and her brother Ahmed, detained in August that year.

Assad's overthrow initially stirred hope that prison records could tell families if, when and how their loved ones died. Mass graves dug by Assad's forces across Syria could be exhumed. Victims could be properly buried.

None of that has transpired.

"It's been a year. They didn't do anything ... Is it thinkable that they didn't even get the documents for these men? Showing us the truth is what we want," Beqai told Reuters.

FADING HOPES

As opposition fighters swept through Syrian towns last year on the way to capturing Damascus, they rushed first to the jails, flinging doors open to free thousands of bewildered prisoners.

On December 8, 2024, hours after Assad fled to Russia, the fighters freed dozens of prisoners from Sednaya, dubbed "the human slaughterhouse" by Amnesty International for the industrial-scale torture and executions undertaken there.

The emerging detainees did not include Beqai's loved ones.

"When the prisons were open, and they didn't come back – that was the shock. That was when the hope ended, it really died," Beqai said. But she demands to know how, when and where her husband and brother may have died.

With no updates from the national commission, Beqai said she had become "obsessed" with her online hunt, scouring pictures of dead detainees and scans of prison documents published by Syrian news outlets who entered jails and security branches after Assad's fall.

"All there is left to do is sit and search," she said.

Such documents have revealed crucial information.

Sarah al-Khattab last saw her husband heading into a police station in Syria's south on February 9, 2019 to reconcile with Assad's government after years holed up with insurgents.

She has had no news of him since.

A spreadsheet of dead Sednaya prisoners seen by Reuters after Assad's fall included his name, Ali Mohsen al-Baridi, dating his death as October 22, 2019 from "stopped pulse and breathing" with orders that the body not be given to his family.

Reuters passed its finding to the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center, an advocacy group working with families of the missing, who informed Khattab.

COMMISSION SEEKS HELP, OVERSIGHT

The national commission was established by new President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The commission's media adviser, Zeina Shahla, told Reuters its mandate includes any missing Syrian, no matter the circumstances.

"When it comes to the pain of the families, maybe we really are being slow. But this file needs progress to come carefully, in a way that is scientific and systemic and not rushed," she said.

Next year, the commission hopes to launch a database of all the missing using documents from prisons and other locations. Exhuming mass graves requires more technical expertise and probably won't happen until 2027, Shahla said.

The commission has met with Syrian advocacy groups and some families. In November, it signed a cooperation agreement with the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Commission on Missing Persons, which have global expertise on the issue.

Syria's commission hopes that will lead to more training for its personnel and access to equipment in short supply in Syria, including DNA testing labs for exhumed remains.

"We welcome any kind of cooperation and support we can receive, as long as the issue remains under (our commission's) authority,” Shahla said.

RELATIVES, ACTIVISTS DEMAND BETTER

The government's approach has upset organizations who developed expertise on enforced disappearances while in exile during the Assad era, six rights groups told Reuters.

Many were excited to apply that knowledge on the ground with Assad gone, but say the government's centralized approach has excluded them, slowed progress and left families in limbo.

"When you have as many as a quarter of a million people missing, you can't do that. You break up the work," said Ahmad Helmi, a Syrian activist who leads Ta'afi, an initiative focused on missing detainees and prison survivors.

Activists also accuse the commission of "monopolizing" detention-related documents.

In September, Syrian authorities briefly detained Amer Matar, an activist who founded a virtual museum to preserve detainees' experiences, accusing him of illegally accessing official documents for personal purposes.

In November, the commission urged families not to believe any detention-related documents shared on unofficial online platforms, like the ones Beqai has been searching, and threatened legal action against those outlets.

"The commission wants to monopolize the file, but it lacks the tools, the competence and the transparency. It demands the trust of families but delivers no results," Matar said.

Shahla said the commission is "the central, official body authorized to reveal the fate" of missing people and that families needed one place to go to for accurate answers.

Agnes Callamard, head of Amnesty International, said the commission should issue regular updates about its progress and consider granting financial aid to relatives of missing people.

"The most important thing ... the national commission can do at the moment is ensuring that families feel they are being heard and being supported," she told Reuters.

As Syria marks a year since Assad's downfall, many people remain exhausted by the same burden that plagued them under his rule: the lack of closure.

Alia Darraji last saw her son Yazan on November 1, 2014, as he left home to meet friends near Damascus. He never returned.

In the last year, the elderly woman has spent time in "truth tents" - sit-ins demanding information on disappeared Syrians that were unthinkable under Assad. While solidarity has helped, it hasn't given her what her heart aches for.

"We were hoping to find their bodies, to bury them, or to find out where they are," Darraji said.

Features

‘It’s All Over’: How Iran Abandoned Assad to His Fate Days Before Fall

Iran was a staunch backer of Bashar al-Assad but quickly withdrew its forces once as opposition forces took over Syria. (AFP)
Iran was a staunch backer of Bashar al-Assad but quickly withdrew its forces once as opposition forces took over Syria. (AFP)
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‘It’s All Over’: How Iran Abandoned Assad to His Fate Days Before Fall

Iran was a staunch backer of Bashar al-Assad but quickly withdrew its forces once as opposition forces took over Syria. (AFP)
Iran was a staunch backer of Bashar al-Assad but quickly withdrew its forces once as opposition forces took over Syria. (AFP)

As city after city fell to a lightning opposition offensive in Syria last December, Iranian forces and diplomats supporting Bashar al-Assad saw the writing on the wall, abandoning the longtime ruler days before his ousting, sources told AFP.

During Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 following the government's brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, Iran was one of Damascus's biggest backers, sending Assad military advisers and forces from its Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian and allied regional fighters -- mainly from Lebanon's Hezbollah, but also from Iraq and Afghanistan -- had held key locations and helped prop up Assad, only to melt away in the face of opposition forces' headlong rush towards the capital.

Syrian officers and soldiers served under the Iranian Guards, whose influence grew during the conflict as Assad's power waned.

A former Syrian officer assigned to one of the Guards' security headquarters in Damascus said that on December 5 last year, his Iranian superior summoned him to an operations center in the Mazzeh district the following day to discuss an "important matter".

The former officer, requesting anonymity due to fears for his safety, said his superior, known as Hajj Abu Ibrahim, made a bombshell announcement to around 20 Syrian officers and soldiers gathered for the meeting.

"From today, there will be no more Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria. We're leaving," they were told.

"It's all over. From today, we are no longer responsible for you."

He said they were ordered to burn or otherwise destroy sensitive documents and remove hard drives from computers.

- Border bottleneck -

The announcement came as the opposition forces were making huge gains, but it still took the Syrian soldiers by surprise, he said.

"We knew things hadn't been going well, but not to that extent."

They received one month's salary in advance and went home.

Two days later the opposition forces captured Damascus without a fight after Assad fled to Russia.

Two Syrian employees of Iran's consulate in Damascus, requesting anonymity for security reasons, also described a hasty Iranian exit.

The consulate was empty by the evening of December 5 as Iranian diplomats scarpered across the border to Beirut, they told AFP.

Several Syrian employees "who held Iranian nationality left with them, accompanied by senior Revolutionary Guards officers", according to one of the former employees.

At Jdeidet Yabus, Syria's main border crossing with Lebanon, taxi drivers and former staff reported a massive bottleneck on December 5 and 6, with an eight-hour wait to clear the frontier.

Both of the former consulate employees said the Iranians told their Syrian personnel to stay home and paid them three months' salary.

The embassy, consulate and all Iranian security positions were deserted by the morning of December 6, they said.

- Russian base -

During the war, forces under Iranian command were concentrated in sensitive areas inside Damascus and its suburbs, particularly the Sayyida Zeinab area, home to an important Shiite shrine, and around Damascus airport, as well as near the Lebanese and Iraqi borders.

Parts of the northern city of Aleppo and locations elsewhere in the province were also major staging areas for personnel and fighters.

At a site that used to be a key military base for Iranian forces south of Aleppo, Colonel Mohammad Dibo said that when the city fell early in the opposition campaign, "Iran stopped fighting".

Iranian forces "had to withdraw suddenly after the quick collapse" of Assad's military, said Dibo, who took part in the opposition offensive and now serves in Syria's new army.

On the heavily damaged walls of the abandoned base, an AFP journalist saw Iranian and Hezbollah slogans, and a painting of a sword tearing through an Israeli flag.

Tehran's foe Israel had launched hundreds of strikes on Syria over the course of the war, mainly saying it was targeting Assad's army and Iran-backed groups.

The former Syrian army officer who requested anonymity said that on December 5, a senior Iranian military official known as Hajj Jawad and several Iranian soldiers and officers were evacuated to Russia's Hmeimim base on the Mediterranean coast, then flown back to Tehran.

At the abandoned site near Aleppo, Dibo said that after the city's fall, "some 4,000 Iranian military personnel were evacuated via Russia's Hmeimim base" where they had taken refuge.

Others fled overland through Iraq or Lebanon, he said.

Their exit was so rushed that "when we entered their bases" in Aleppo province, "we found passports and identity documents belonging to Iranian officers who didn't even have time to retrieve them."