At least 12 Hezbollah militiamen and one Iranian commander were killed over the weekend fighting in Syria on the side of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Hezbollah militiamen were killed "in shelling and fighting in the south of Aleppo province, udring the fierce offensive by Al-Nusra... and rebels the day before yesterday [Friday]," reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported the death of Mashallah Shamsa, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander, in Syria on Sunday. However the report did not reveal where in Syria he was killed nor how he was killed. Both Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the allied Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia have been aiding the Assad regime in the ongoing conflict in Syria for years now. Hezbollah intervened in mid-2013 directly on the battlefield. IRGC personnel have coordinated offensives and have been seen on the ground in Syria. However Tehran stresses that its military personnel in Syria are there on a purely advisory role.
