The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC , elite units of the Iranian armed forces), Lt. Gen. Hossein Salami, confirmed the death of the head of the Iranian military corps in Syria, Maj. Gen. Kiyomars Pourhashemi as a result of an attack in the northern part of the Arab republic, blaming Israel for the activation of the extremists.
„The brutal Zionist regime suffered a strategic defeat in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and failed to achieve its diabolical goal of establishing dominance over the Islamic resistance front. Now the Takfiri terrorists, under the control and leadership of the defeated in Gaza and South Lebanon, have carried out another brutal attack on Syria in recent days, drawing a response from that country's army and militia. One of the crimes of the Zionist Takfiri terrorists was the assassination of Iran's chief military adviser in Syria, Major General Kiyoumars Pourhashemi, known as Hajj Hashem“, IRGC press office quoted Salami as saying.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military has strengthened defenses on the northern border of Hama province, and reports of terrorist infiltration there are false, the Syrian Armed Forces General Command said in a statement posted on the Syrian Defense Ministry's Facebook page.
„The messages that are being spread on the pages and platforms of armed terrorist organizations about their penetration into cities in the northern part of the province are not true,”, the text says. The High Command emphasized that the armed forces had "strengthened the defensive line" and are fully prepared to "repel any possible attack".
According to the radio station Sham FM, large reinforcements of the Syrian army are flowing north and northwest of Hama province.
Previously, the main command denied information that the Syrian army had withdrawn from Hama, which borders the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, where armed formations of the extremist group "Jabhat al-Nusra" began an offensive.