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A general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in Syria on Thursday during fighting between Syrian government forces and opposition groups, an Iranian news agency reported.

Tehran has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war that broke out in 2011, sending thousands of fighters to Syria.

The worst fighting in years broke out in northern Syria this week between opposition groups and the army.

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“General Kioumars Pourhashemi, one of Iran’s senior advisors in Aleppo, was killed in an attack carried out by takfiri terrorist mercenaries,” the state-linked Tasnim news agency reported.

In Shia-majority Iran, the term “takfiri” generally refers to supporters of radical Sunni Islam.

Militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise attack on the army in Aleppo province on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The fighting has left more than 140 combatants dead, the Britain-based war monitor said.

The IRGC confirmed the death of a “military advisor in Iraq and Syria,” identifying him as a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the flare-up in Syria was part of a US and Israeli “plan to disrupt the stability and security of the region.”

With AFP

Read more:

Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in clashes between army, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham

Syrian rebels launch attack against army in Aleppo province