Today Iran admitted to sending troops to Syria to help in suppressing pro-democracy demonstrations. General Ismail Kuoni, deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, attempted to justify the action by claiming it saved lives. “If the Islamic Republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of civilians would have been twice as bad,” he asserted, according to Ynetnews, which saw the article before it was removed.
The general went on to imply that most civilians had been killed by Syrian rebels, not by Syrian government forces. “Iran had physically and non-physically stopped the rebels from killing many more among the Syrian people,” he said.
The statements were later removed from the website of Iran’s ISNA. A prudent move considering the fallout from the recent massacre of 90 people in the town of Houla, including 32 children, by the supporters of President Assad’s regime.
