03 April 2016•Update: 08 April 2016
By Ahmet Dursun
ISTANBUL
An Iranian military commander was killed in Syria on Sunday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency has reported.
According to the news agency, the body of Mashallah Shamsa, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander, has since been brought back to Iran for burial in his hometown of Burucerd.
The agency did not state where in Syria -- or how -- Shamsa was killed.
In recent years, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard -- along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah -- has been fighting in Syria to support the Bashar al-Assad regime, although Tehran officially denies any military involvement in the conflict.
According to the U.N., more than 230,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in early 2011 between pro-Assad forces -- including Hezbollah -- and armed anti-regime opposition groups.