Hamedani was a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and was made deputy chief commander of the elite forces in 2005

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general has been killed near Aleppo, where he was advising the Syrian army on their battle against ISIS fighters, the guards said in a statement on Friday.

General Hossein Hamedani was killed late on Wednesday, the statement said.

Iran is the main regional ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has provided military and economic support during Syria’s four-year-old civil war.

Hamedani’s death comes as ISIS fighters captured several Syrian villages from rival insurgents near Aleppo, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite Russian air strikes that Moscow says have targeted the hardline group.

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