Death of a Revolutionary Guard Commander and 'Capture' of Six Iranians in Khan Tuman, Syria

According to officials from the Gilan Revolutionary Guard, Shafiq Shafiei, a commander of the Quds Force in Syria, was killed during an attack by the al-Nusra Front on the village of 'Khan Tuman', and six Iranian forces have also been captured. On Tuesday, May 8, the Tasnim news agency reported that Ahadollah Sirati, the head of the veterans of the Quds Force in Gilan, confirmed the death of Shafiei in Khan Tuman. Sirati stated that Shafiei, a commander from Gilan, was killed on May 6 while on an 'advisory mission' in Khan Tuman, Syria. Shafiei, from the Rudbar county, is the brother of Sadeq Shafiei, a military commander during the Iran-Iraq war. Jam-e Jam Online also quoted Ismail Kowsari, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stating that 'about six Iranians have been captured' in the Khan Tuman operation. Mohammad Saleh Jokar, another member of the National Security Commission, also confirmed the capture of several Iranian forces in Khan Tuman. Kowsari and Jokar's statements come at a time when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Mazandaran Province, despite announcing the number of casualties and injuries among its forces in Khan Tuman, did not mention the capture of Iranian military personnel. Hossein Ali Rezaei, the public relations officer of the IRGC in Mazandaran, had only stated that 13 of its forces were killed and 21 injured in the clashes. Nevertheless, the IRGC of Mazandaran had asked media and social media users to refrain from republishing news about Iranian casualties in Aleppo, Syria, to 'maintain calm in society' and stated that 'takfiri groups' are 'spreading incomplete information about them on social media to obtain additional information' about Iranian forces. Iranian officials refer to all armed groups opposing Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, as 'takfiri groups'. On the other hand, the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, attacked government forces stationed in the village of 'Khan Tuman' near the Damascus-Aleppo highway on Thursday, May 5, during a ceasefire and captured the village. A large number of Iranian military personnel and Afghan forces sent to Syria under the 'Fatimiyoun Brigade' by the Islamic Republic have been killed, injured, and captured in this attack. Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic, also criticized the 'exploitation of Iran's goodwill in establishing a ceasefire' in Syria and warned the groups involved in this attack that their actions would not go unanswered. Shamkhani added that Russia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah would retaliate against the Khan Tuman attack in cooperation with each other. The Islamic Republic of Iran claims to have only an advisory presence in Syria, but the number of Iranian casualties in Syria has significantly increased in recent months.