France24

The killing on Wednesday of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, identified by two different names, has underscored the murky nature of Tehran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict.

At a funeral service in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Thursday, footage broadcast on state TV showed mourners bearing the flag-draped coffin of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ commander whose killing has underscored the involvement of the powerful Iranian force in the Syrian conflict.

Iranian media and official statements provided two different names of the deceased man, highlighting the murky nature of the workings of the Revolutionary Guards Corps – or Pasdaran, as it’s commonly called.

The semiofficial Fars news agency identified the slain commander as Gen. Hassan Shateri and said he was in charge of reconstruction projects in southern Lebanon.

But an official statement issued by the Iranian embassy in Lebanon identified him as engineer Hussam Khoshnevis and denounced the “terrorist attack” that killed him. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah-owned Al Manar TV also identified him as Khoshnevis.

The discrepancy suggests that Shateri was probably undercover as a civilian official at the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

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