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Iranian General Commands Shiite Expeditionary Forces in Aleppo
(Long War Journal) Amir Toumaj - Photos have emerged showing that Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) foreign operations unit, the Qods Force, is in Aleppo, Syria. Soleimani commands the IRGC-led Shiite expeditionary forces there, which include the Afghan Fatemiyoun, Pakistani Zeynabiyoun, Lebanese Hizbullah, and the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba, now the largest Iraqi Shiite militia in Syria. Whereas significant numbers of regular IRGC ground forces rotated into Syria between September 2015 and May 2016, during the latest phase of the battle for Aleppo there have been higher numbers of Afghan, Pakistani, Lebanese, and Iraqi fatalities, while IRGC fatalities have dropped significantly. However, at least five IRGC commanders with the rank of brigadier general were killed in Syria in the past few weeks. The writer is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.