Iran's intelligence minister has said that Qassem Soleimani had offered Bashar al-Assad the chance to go to Iran and command his forces from there, but he refused. Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian had also announced similar news.
According to FCNN, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said in an interview with the Al-Mayadeen website that Iran had offered Bashar al-Assad the opportunity to go to the country and command his forces from there, but he refused.
According to Asr Iran, Alavi said in the interview, which was conducted on Saturday, May 25, that Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, made this offer to Assad on behalf of Iran. However, he did not mention the time of the offer.
According to Alavi, the Syrian president, in response to Qassem Soleimani's proposal, stated that "my family is no different from other Syrian families and we will stay in Damascus."
Previously, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Deputy for Arab and North African Affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, had also said: "Two years ago [in 2013], in a meeting we had with Bashar al-Assad, he was offered to send his family to Iran, but his response was that I would be in the country until the last moment and my wife would be responsible for taking care of the families of the martyrs, and we would not leave the country."
In his interview with Al-Mayadeen, the Iranian Minister of Intelligence also stated that the beginning of the Syrian war, or as he put it, the "conspiracy against Syria," was in 2006, when the Assad government supported Lebanese Hezbollah in the war with Israel.
Mahmoud Alavi also emphasized Iran's support for the Syrian regime, saying: "If Iran had not paid attention to fighting terrorism throughout Syria and Iraq, it would now be facing [terrorists] in its western provinces."
On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made a similar comment on the matter, saying: "If it weren't for Iran, ISIS would have practically materialized, and today, instead of a terrorist group, we would be facing the terrorist state of ISIS."
In another part of his interview with Al-Mayadeen, the Iranian Minister of Intelligence described the city of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group, as "one of the centers of anti-Iranian actions" and stated that "members of all the groups that were sent to Iran in recent months to carry out terrorist operations have been killed or arrested."
According to Alavi, some members of these groups intended to carry out sabotage operations during the elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts in Iran (March 29, 2018), but at the same time, according to him, a large workshop for manufacturing explosives was identified.
The Iranian Minister of Intelligence once again emphasized Iran's unwavering support for its allies, saying: "These allies are stronger today than ever before and are achieving new victories every day."
The Iranian government has always denied having a military presence in Syria, claiming that its military experts in Syria only have an advisory role. So far, dozens of IRGC officers and recently several Iranian army commandos have been killed in Syria.
Source: Deutsche Welle
