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| Hassan Shateri (top) and AFP photo of his portrait on the coffin carried by Tehran mourners |
Iran has lost its point man
in Lebanon and Syria.
He was presumably ambushed
and killed by Syrian opposition forces while travelling overland to Beirut from
Damascus.
Prominent Iranian
clerics, military commanders and politicians led mourners at his mid-day
funeral at a mosque in north Tehran today.
They included Hojatoleslam
Ali Saidi, representing Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Revolutionary
Guards chief Ali Jaafari, Quds
Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar
Salehi.
The semiofficial Fars news agency identified the slain
Revolutionary Guards commanding officer as Hassan Shateri.
Footage of the service
broadcast on state TV showed mourners carrying aloft a coffin with his
portrait.
Fars said Shateri was a
veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, and served in Afghanistan before going to
Lebanon. He is to be buried Friday in his hometown of Semnan, some 150
kilometers east of Tehran.
In Lebanon, Shateri
posed as “Hessam Khoshnevis,” head of an Iranian agency set
up to help rebuild Hezbollah-controlled areas devastated by the 2006 war with
Israel.
A commander of Syrian
opposition forces battling President Bashar al-Assad said the rebel fighters
carried out the attack near the Syrian town of Zabadani, a few miles from the
Lebanese border.
Damascus receives
extended military and intelligence assistance from Iran and Hezbollah as part
of the effort to keep Assad in power.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said Shateri was shot dead by rebels while heading to Lebanon from
the Syrian capital.
"We do not know
exactly where he was shot, but we do know that a rebel group ambushed his
vehicle while en route from Damascus to Beirut," Britain-based Observatory
director Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP.
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| Syrian tanker trucks ferrying Lebanese fuel to Assad forces |
The Iranian embassy in
Beirut said "armed terrorists" killed a man it identified as “Hessam
Khoshnevis,” adding that he had been involved in reconstruction work in
Lebanon.
The embassy named him as
"Hassan Shateri, also known as Hessam Khoshnevis".
It said he was in charge
of the Iranian Committee for the Reconstruction of Lebanon set up after the
2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Protesters in Lebanon are
meanwhile continuing to block the northern border crossing with Syria to stop
diesel fuel shipments they say are being used to resupply Assad’s military.
Around 30 tanker trucks
carrying fuel from refineries in Tripoli and Zahrani were forced to stop on the
Lebanese side of the Arida border crossing between the two countries.
A written statement by
the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Wednesday appealed to Lebanese President Michel
Suleiman to stop fuel shipments to Assad forces.
FSA spokesperson Louay
al-Mokdad later told MTV channel the Unified Judicial Council of the Revolution
in Damascus has issued an arrest warrant against Lebanese Prime Minister Najib
Mikati, his brother Taha and his nephew Azmi for their alleged role in
resupplying Assad’s military with Lebanese fuel.
