A high-ranking Iranian military official advising Iraqi troops was killed by an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria sniper in Central Iraq Saturday.
Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi, a senior commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was declared “martyred” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard while serving in the battleground city of Samarra, The Long War Journal reports.
The Quds Force is the Revolutionary Guard’s special forces unit and has been heavily involved in the Syrian Civil War and the fight against ISIS. They are designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.
Iran is heavily invested in defeating ISIS in Iraq and has provided significant levels of support to both the Iraqi army and Shiite militias locked in combat with the Sunni radicals. The supreme commander of the Quds Force has even been spotted helping Iraqi military operations in the area.
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Are you having trouble keeping up with the players in the war in Iraq? ISIS, Peshmerga Kurds, Iraqi military, US military and Iranian Quds are most of the players. Some are surrogates for other countries but this is a good case where the enemy of our enemy is not our friend. No matter what the pResident or John Kerry state. So many players. So many hands to watch.
David DeGerolamo
