Iran's proxy war in Syria, explained

At his home in Iran, a man is weighing up
whether he should go and fight in a foreign conflict along
with friends who are already there. Eventually he decides
to leave his children, bidding goodbye to Iran's mullahs
too, who will pay him up to $600 a month as
a mercenary in far-off Syria. It's a recruitment advert,
aired on Iranian state TV last year, but there's no mention of money
here, instead an appeal to destroy Sunni jihadists, including Isis,
and defend the tomb of Zeinab in Damascus, one of Shia
Islam's holiest shrines. Iran has recruited an army of Shia
fighters to prop up President Assad, and to extend an arc of Shia
influence from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean,
which has Washington and its allies rattled.
Iran provides arms, financing and training, and funnels foreign
fighters into Syria. It has also sent members of the Iran
Revolutionary Guards to take part in direct combat operations.
South of Aleppo in Syria, and the master of those operations
is about to make a very rare public appearance.
He's Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iranian
military missions overseas, and credited with turning
the tide of Syria's war. In this adoring crowd are Iraqi,
Lebanese and Afghan fighters, as well as Iranians,
so he speaks to them in a mixture of Persian and Arabic,
though they are all fighting under the banner of Shia Islam.
At first, Suleimani had sent the Assad regime these military
advisors from Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
This covert mission ended in disaster when they were
caught in a cornfield by a Syrian rebel ambush.
It was too late. All these men were killed.
This footage was captured by Syrian rebels, who then published it,
proving that Iran had boots on the ground,though officials
in Tehran denied it. Hezbollah was Iran's first
proxy force in Syria, fellow Shia fighters,
based in Lebanon, but funded and trained by the Iranians,
diverted by their leader from their lifelong mission
to confront Israel, to save President Assad instead.
In 2014, Channel 4 News was given rare access to the funeral
of a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria.
Their losses were mounting in what had turned into a proxy war
with Sunni rebels funded by Turkey, the Saudis and other Gulf states.
So Syria's President made a plea for more help.
The Iranians found that manpower sympathetic to the cause.
Iraqi, Afghan and even Pakistani fighters.
Some of them Hezbollah lookalikes. It was cheaper than using Iranian
men, there was no public backlash, and it was plausibly deniable too.
Though, by last year, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei was openly visiting the families of those who had
died fighting in Syria. About 1,000 dead,
according to one official. This religious war is
now too big to hide.
And nowhere was Iran more focused than the battle for Aleppo.
This jeep fighting on that front is Iranian-armed and Iranian-built.
Russian air strikes paved the way for victory,
but it's believed up to 8,000 Iranian-backed fighters took
the lead on the ground. In December their commander,
Qassem Suleimani, made another rare appearance,
this time inside the recaptured city.
The architect of plans to extend Shia military power
across the Middle East, in a mission which at its most
daring could secure a land corridor from Iran through Iraq to Syria
and the Mediterranean Sea. Though the Americans see this
as dangerous Iranian meddling. Iran is the world's leading state
sponsor of terrorism and is responsible for intensifying
multiple conflicts and undermining US interests in countries
such as Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, and continuing
to support attacks against Israel. Yet for the Iranians,
burying their dead from a distant war, that war is about challenging
the ambitions of their Sunni rivals Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
and their allies the Americans. And any battle in the name
of the Shia faith is, by extension, a battle for the survival
of Iran itself.

Iran's proxy war in Syria, explained

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