Tehran: More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran's veterans' affairs office said Tuesday.
"The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000," Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran's Foundation of Martyrs' and Veterans' Affairs, as saying.
Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad's forces. They are known in Iran as "defenders of the shrines" in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria.
