Iran has provided drones to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to opposition forces speaking to CNN. Syrian government troops have reportedly turned the unmanned aircraft against Syrian civilians and rebel forces. The reports come in the aftermath of intelligence reports published in September that documented how “planes are flying from Iran to Syria via Iraq on an almost daily basis, carrying IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) personnel and tens of tons of weapons to arm the Syrian security forces and militias fighting against the rebels.” The close cooperation between Syria and Iran, with Iran on one side of what has become a war between Tehran and its proxies versus forces aligned with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, calls into question analysis from foreign policy experts that engagement with Damascus could have peeled Syria away from Iran.

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