President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.

The force, dubbed the National Defense Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The popular committees were originally formed to protect pro-regime neighborhoods from rebels.

“The [regular] army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defense Army,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. “They include men and women, and members of all the sects.”

The new force is not connected to the pro-regime shabiha militia, which the army and security forces have deployed ever since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt to help it suppress dissent across the country.

Members of the paramilitary force, like the popular committees before, will focus on fighting in their own neighborhoods.

On Friday, Moscow’s Russia Today reported on its website that the new National Defense Army was being set up to “defend districts against gunmen.”

“The Syrian authorities are set to create … a National Defense Army, parallel to regime forces, so that the [regular] army is freed up for combat,” the website reported citing an unnamed official.

Abdel Rahman, whose Observatory relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, said Iran was involved in building the paramilitary force.

“The paramilitary force includes an elite fighting force trained by Iran,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“Iran has provided training to the paramilitary force’s commando fighters.”

Iran, Damascus’ key regional ally, staunchly backs Assad and in September 2012 said its elite Quds Force, which is tasked with carrying out operations outside the Islamic republic, was giving Damascus “counsel and advice.”

On the ground, an activist said the new force was already active in the central province of Homs.

“The number of regime fighters in the province has swelled in recent days, as the National Defense Army has started to come into action,” anti-regime activist Hadi al-Abdullah told AFP via the Internet from the rebel-held town of Qusayr.

01/21/2013

Syrian rebels on Wednesday freed 48 Iranians they had been holding for months in a swap for 2,130 prisoners detained by the Syrian regime, according to a Turkish charity, a rebel spokesperson and Iranian state television.

“This is the result of months of civil diplomacy carried out by our organization,” a spokesman for the Turkish charity the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), Serkan Nergis, told AFP in Turkey.

The regime’s prisoners exchanged for the Iranians were of several nationalities, including Turks, he said.

A spokesperson for the rebel Free Syrian Army, Ahmed al-Khatib, confirmed the deal, telling AFP in Beirut by telephone it was worked out through Turkish and Qatari mediation with Iran lobbying ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Iranian television made no mention of the swap deal, saying only that “the 48 Iranian pilgrims were released.”

The Iranians counted several Revolutionary Guards members, according to the rebel group which snatched them in Damascus in early August and threatened them with execution.

The rebels released a video on August 5 showing the captives and Iranian military identification cards taken from them.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on August 8 admitted there were Revolutionary Guards in the group, but claimed they were “retired.”

Salehi had said all 48 had been on a religious pilgrimmage to a Shiite shrine in southeast Damacus, rejecting suspicions the Iranians had been providing military support to Assad’s forces.

Wednesday’s prisoner release was not immediately confirmed by Turkish or Syrian officials.

Separate to the abduction, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards acknowledged on September 16 that members of its Quds Force, an elite external operations unit, had been dispatched to Syria.

But Guards commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari told journalists the Quds deployment was there only to “counsel” Syrian forces fighting insurgents, and not for combat.

Salehi’s foreign ministry days later stressed that Jafari’s admission did not in any way mean that Iran had a “military presence” in Syria.

Iran has said it is providing only economic and humanitarian aid to Syria’s regime, which it sees as part of a regional “resistance” to Israel.

The United States and its Western allies believe that Iran is also providing weapons, snooping technology and military personnel skilled in hunting down and suppressing opposition members.

01/09/2013

09/12/12

Photo Credit: zaman-alwsl.net

The Syrian news website zaman-alwsl.net conducted an interview with a defecting Major in the Chemical Warfare Corp of the Syrian army, who revealed the following:

The Syrian army has already used a small amount of chemical weapons in a battle near Baba Amr.

In November large arsenals of chemical weapons was transfer from storage facilities on Mount Qassioun near Damascus, which is under the control of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence, to several airports in Syria, in order to load them onto planes for bombing rebel targets.

The Aldemir military airport, on the otskirts of Damascus, is designated as the main base of operations from which aerial bombing with chemical weapons will be carried out.

A large part of Syria’s chemical weapons has been removed from storage at Mount Qassioun and transferred by civilian cars chauffeured from Hezbollah soldiers to Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

The Syrian army is being aided by Iranian and North Korean experts in treatment and usage of its chemical weapons.

Over the past month and a half the Syrian army has been testing its chemical weapons in the area of Al Muslemia, east of Aleppo, under the guidance of Iranian experts.

09/12/12

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT |

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels backed by radical Islamists captured a northern regimental command center of President Bashar al-Assad’s army, activists said on Sunday, as Russia dismissed speculation that it is preparing for its ally’s possible exit from power.

Assad’s forces hammered rebel units on the outskirts of Damascus as they tried to drive back opposition fighters rebels seeking to advance toward the embattled leader’s seat of power.

Rebels have made a series of advances in recent weeks, partly due to help from radicals such as Jabhat al-Nusra, a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq which has been excluded from a newly-formed rebel military command.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jabhat al-Nusra, which has called for the creation of an Islamic state in Syria, had participated in capturing the command center of the army’s 111th regiment in the north of the country. It said around five soldiers were captured, while the commanding officer and some 140 of his men fled to another army site nearby.

Russia, Syria’s main arms supplier, dismissed suggestions from observers that its support for Assad might be softening.

“We are not holding any talks on the fate of Assad,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. “All attempts to present the situation differently are rather shady,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Washington and its NATO allies, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, are pressing for Assad’s departure to end the conflict in Syria, which has taken more than 40,000 lives.

Russia and China have blocked U.N. resolutions against Assad, saying they oppose foreign intervention in the conflict.

However, Western officials have recently cited intelligence reports that Assad may turn to chemical weapons. “We have seen enough evidence to know that they need a warning and they have received a warning and I hope they heed that,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday.

Syria has repeatedly denied the charges and accused the West of creating pretexts for foreign intervention.

RADICALS ON THE RISE

Rebels have seized several military bases in recent weeks, although some activists on the ground say there is no sign they are on the verge of toppling Assad.

The rebels’ capture of the regimental command center in the Sheikh Suleiman region of Aleppo province, however, shows growing cooperation and even allegiance to radical Islamists who have proven to be some of the most effective fighters.

It is unclear how much Jabhat al-Nusra’s exclusion from the newly-formed rebel military command in Syria, an effort backed by Western, Turkish and Arab security officials, will affect efforts to unify rebel ranks and increase financial support.

Led by Brigadier Selim Idris, the new command structure itself is also Islamist-dominated, though it has the backing of many Western states which have expressed reluctance to support the rebels due to the presence of radicals.

Radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra are small compared with other factions but their influence has grown in recent months, partly due to their successful operations. Some residents and rebels also believe the hardliners are more disciplined than some rebels who have been accused of looting and kidnapping.

ROAD TO DAMASCUS?

Damascus has become a focal point of battles over the past week, as rebels effectively shut the international airport by clashing with Assad’s forces there. Foreign flights have been suspended and residents say the airport road is closed.

Rebels who have dubbed their campaign “Operation Opening the Road to Damascus”, uploaded video on Sunday that showed heavy gunbattles and explosions rocking several rural towns around the capital. The video also showed rebels firing a fully functioning tank which they had captured from the army.

But there is no clear winner yet in a battle where neither side seems to have advanced. The Syrian army has claimed many successes around the capital, airing footage on state television of soldiers raiding parts of the rebel stronghold of Deraya.

“Our noble forces in Deraya have destroyed some of the terrorist dens used by al Qaeda terrorists to store weapons and other criminal tools,” said a report on Syria TV, which usually refers to rebels as terrorists. “Many terrorists were killed.”

Syrian soldiers also freed an Iranian diplomat captured on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday, according to Iran’s state-run Arabic news channel Al-Alam. Majeed Adeli, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, had been kidnapped by rebels in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb.

Rebels have been targeting Iranians in Syria, many of whom it accuses of belonging to Iranian security forces. Iran has been Assad’s main bankroller and backer in the region. Rebels are also holding 48 Iranians which Tehran says were pilgrims.

06/12/12

An undated photo provided by the Syrian state news agency shows heavy artillery firing at a military exercise. (SANA — Associated Press)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stressed that, should Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his desperation deploy some of his chemical weapons stockpile against his own people, he will cross “a red line for the United States.” She warned, “suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”

Some observers have belittled the chemical weapons red line, arguing that it’s silly for the United States to distinguish so assiduously between which military tool Assad happens to use in a campaign that has killed, and often targeted, thousands of civilians. “Blowing your people up with high explosives is allowable,” Dominic Tierney wrote at TheAtlantic.com, “as is shooting them, or torturing them. But woe betide the Syrian regime if it even thinks about using chemical weapons!” Isn’t this hypocritical? Worse, does it risk unintentionally encouraging Assad’s use of conventional weapons?” An article at Foreign Policy notes that drawing the chemical weapons “red line” might “implicitly signal that [the U.S.] would not intervene otherwise, potentially emboldening the Assad regime.”

So why go to all the trouble of drawing a red line around chemical weapons? Why make such a big deal over them when Assad is already killing so many Syrians without them? I can’t tell you what’s happening inside Clinton’s brain, or behind closed doors at the White House or State Department, but there is a long-established international norm against chemical weapons. And that norm has value well beyond this one conflict in this one country.

It would certainly be nice if we lived in a world where conventional weapons were never used or at least never used against civilians, and that’s a goal worth aspiring to. But we live in a world where we still have to manage the conflicts we can’t prevent. As long as war is a facet of human existence, it’s worth upholding the norm that states do not use chemical weapons in those wars.

Chemical weapons were not always so taboo. The norm against their use was first established by the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which came at the enormous cost of World War I. That treaty and the norm it enforced didn’t prevent chemical weapons from being used during World War II, but it did perhaps contribute to their absence from European fronts and to Japan’s decision to use them more sparingly than they likely would have otherwise. World War II was still awful, but it was considerably less awful than if chemical weapons had been used as widely as they were in the previous world war.

Syria’s violence is likewise still terrible even without chemical weapons, but it is less terrible than it would almost certainly be if the state felt it could freely deploy its vast chemical weapons. And, as long as there are conflicts involving states that possess or have access to chemical weapons, those conflicts will be less deadly if the chemical weapons remain locked up.

The U.S. record in enforcing the norm against chemical weapons is not perfect. During the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, in which the United States sometimes backed Saddam Hussein’s effort against a mutual Iranian enemy, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was at times overlooked. The history of what exactly the United States knew about Saddam’s chemical attacks as they happened and why it chose to respond (or, more accurately, not respond) as it did is still shrouded in some mystery. But an investigation by Joost Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch concluded that the United States may have played down the reports, or at least avoided calling attention to them. Though Saddam of course fell many years later, he suffered relatively little at the time for his decision to use chemical weapons.

According to a Foreign Affairs review of Hiltermann’s book on the Iraqi gas attacks, “the fallout of these developments has been an enhanced readiness among states to stock and prepare to use weapons of mass destruction [and] an Iran set on never again being without such weapons.” Whether or not that’s an accurate characterization of countries’ motivation in amassing chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, it highlights the potentially wide-reaching and long-term risks of even a single incident of chemical weapons usage. That risk alone underscores the importance of the international norm against chemical weapons, and informs why the United States is so insistent on upholding it.

04/12/12

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

NEW YORK - If there is anyone in Damascus contemplating the use of chemical weapons as a means of political survival he is utterly mistaken. Saddam Hussein tried that with the Kurds and look where he ended up - in the dustbin of history. No better destiny will await the embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if he resorts to the large stockpile of chemical weapons to stave off the advancing rebels.

Sure, he may strike a temporary blow, but it is a given that this will be tantamount to digging his own grave, as the opposition will be ever more determined to dislodge him forcefully and the international community will back them all they can.

In turn, this calls for a stern warning from Tehran to its traditional ally in Damascus that Syria should refrain from even contemplating, let alone preparing, the use of chemical weapons, otherwise it will be nearly impossible for Tehran to continue supporting Damascus. To do so would blemish Tehran and stigmatize it in the region for a long time, a heavy price no politician in Tehran is prepared to pay.

The growing fear that Assad may use his chemical canisters against ferocious opponents bent on the destruction of the Alawite-led regime has elicited a warning from US President Barack Obama regarding the “dire consequences”, one of which would be a more interventionist approach by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), perhaps leading to a “no-fly zone” in parts of Syria.

For its part, Tehran must also make clear to Assad that it does not wish to be associated with a regime that commits the taboo of mass carnage, since there are hundreds if not thousands of innocent civilians who are sure to die as a result of any use of chemical weapons. Iran prides itself for its high moral standards, which was reflected in its refusal to emulate Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and therefore it cannot compromise its norms and principles so easily for the sake of a troubled ally.

The reason a public statement by the Iranian leaders regarding this matter is necessary and called for is that it can act as a break on Assad’s chemical warfare plans and simultaneously build confidence with aspects of the Syrian opposition. Tehran recently hosted a meeting for the more “loyal” Syrian opposition groups and the circle of its contact group with the Syrian opposition can grow if the latter are convinced that Iran behaves according to certain guidelines that are inspired by its Islamist world view.

On the contrary, should the news break out that Assad has used his chemical weapons without much concern about the plight of civilians, then it will be doubly difficult for Tehran to stand by that regime and continue to support it - even domestically this will become problematic in the light of presidential elections to be held in Iran next June.

Iran’s ethical behavior during the war with Iraq, mentioned above, can be a good point of reference for Assad, who should do much more to rein in his military to refrain from committing atrocities and let the other side further tarnish its own image - it has already come under fire because of multiple gruesome video images of their cold-blooded murder of their prisoners - thus allowing him to make some gains in the battle for the hearts and minds of Syrians.

That battle, already going badly for Assad’s regime, will undoubtedly spiral toward oblivion if the government uses chemical weapons, irrespective of whatever are the short-term gains. Nothing good in the long-term can come about as a result of such a decision. At present, Assad can still count on elements of the world community, for example Russia, China, Iran, some Latin nations, defending him, yet it will be doubly difficult for those regimes to sustain their support once the red line on chemical and biological weapons is crossed. In Iran in particular, the news will alienate many young and educated Iranians from any politician preaching solidarity with the Assad regime.

Still, chances are that Tehran may miscalculate the backlashes that the Assad regime will face if it is accused and found guilty of using chemical weapons. The reason behind an Iranian silence, on the other hand, is rather easy to understand; that is, a tendency to overlook a close ally’s misconduct and simply hope for the best.

This is a very short-sighted of and definitely not in line with either Iran’s national interests nor its Islamist self-understanding. This is why Tehran must act now, and publicly, by putting aside any and all hesitation and remind Assad that its support is not a bottomless pit and there are certain limits, one of which pertains to chemical and biological weapons.

The Ba’athists in Damascus may not like it, yet few in their ranks may have the foresight to realize that Iran has Damascus’s best interest in mind by pre-empting any use of chemical weapons through a forceful denunciation, one that is not predicated on political and military contingency and is, instead, categorical.

03/12/12

Written by Jack Kenny

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his country would not be able to search all Syria-bound Iranian planes that use its airspace.

But speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki pledged that Iraq was committed to preventing weapons being set to Syria.

“Our constitution says Iraq is not a passage for such activities,” he said.

US officials have voiced concerns that Iraq has become a route for shipments of Iranian military supplies that could help the regime of President Bashar Assad in its fight against rebels.

The accusation has been denied by Iraq.

In October, Iraq forced two Iranian Syria-bound planes to land for inspection in Baghdad, but nothing was found.

The Syrian crisis began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests and, according to anti-government activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed.

18/11/12

Iran held a conference to reconcile Syria’s government with opposition factions and end the country’s civil war, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The report said the one-day meeting on Sunday of some 200 opposition members and Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar could be a step toward a future, broad-based opposition gathering.

The report did not say if any of Syria’s major rebel or exile groups had attended. Most of those groups distrust Iran, a key ally of their adversary President Bashar Assad.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned at the opening of the meeting that providing opposition groups with heavy arms could put the entire region at risk of “organized terrorism.”

He said that arming Assad’s opponents, as Damascus accuses Qatar and Saudi Arabia of doing, violates international law and principles of non-intervention in countries’ domestic affairs.

Salehi reiterated Iran’s traditional stance on Syria, blaming “foreign intervention and irresponsible armed groups” for the country’s uprising. He said Iran supports peaceful solutions to end the crisis.

The conference is seen as a reaction to last week’s meeting in Qatar in which opposition groups formed an umbrella coalition to topple Assad.

In August, Iran held a previous conference on the Syria conflict, attended by representatives of 30 countries. The Islamic Republic has supported Assad in the 20-month uprising, repeatedly accusing the West and Israel of instigating the conflicts

18/11/12

PNA-Iran on Sunday warned against sending weapons to Syrian opposition fighters battling its ally in Damascus, saying that this would threaten regional stability and increase the “risk of terrorism.”

“Some countries envisage arming the opposition with heavy and semi-heavy weaponry,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech to open an inter-Syria dialogue in Tehran.

“In reality, they seek to legitimize publicly what they have been doing in secret,” Salehi said, without naming any country.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers at talks in Brussels are due to discuss lifting a strict embargo on arms deliveries to Syria. France has publicly said it favors sending “defensive” weapons to the Syrian opposition.

The initiative would allow the arming of the National Coalition of opposition groups formed in Doha on November 11.

Salehi said such arms deliveries would set a “dangerous precedent” and constitute “a clear interference in the affairs of an independent country.”

“It will spread insecurity, the risk of terrorism and organized violence in all of the region,” he said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its main allies, Iran and Russia, accuse some Arab and Western countries of having secretly provided weapons to Syrian opposition fighters for months.

The opposition National Coalition, recognized by France, Turkey and Gulf countries, has asked for weapons to bring down the regime and hasten the end of a conflict which has killed more than 39,000 people since mid-March last year.

Russia has warned that providing the coalition with weapons would be a “gross violation” of international law.

18/11/12

Is it time to arm the Syrian opposition?

15/11/12

Tehran describes Israeli offensive as “organized

terrorism”; Assad denounces Israel’s “heinous

atrocities.”

Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters

Iran condemned on Thursday as “organized terrorism” an offensive by Israel against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

“Iran considers the criminal act of Israeli military forces in killing civilians as organized terrorism and strongly condemns it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

The spokesman also criticized what he called “the silence of international organizations claiming to defend human rights,” following the strikes.

Iran’s condemnation followed a statement by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime on Wednesday denouncing Israeli “atrocities” in Gaza.

“The Syrian government condemns the heinous atrocities committed by the enemy Israeli army against the Arab Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” AFP quoted a statement carried by the official Syrian news agency SANA as saying.

Assad concluded by urging the international community to “pressure Israel to stop the sinful aggression on our people in the defiant Gaza Strip.”

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Thursday also condemned as “barbaric” Israel’s ongoing operation in Gaza, according to Lebanon’s Daily Star.

“The open war against Gaza, which Israel started with barbaric aggression, is not unusual for Israeli policy that only uses the language of killing and destruction,” Sleiman reportedly said in a statement.

“It is about time for the enemy to realize that the aggression policy has been proven futile,” Sleiman added.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri also weighed in, saying “Israel’s renewed attacks against Gaza prove the aggressive policy adopted by Israel against Palestinians and Arabs in general.

“Israel insists on keeping control over Palestinian territories and preventing all attempts to establish an independent Palestinian State,” he said.

October 31, 2012 08:47 PMBy Bassem MroueFILE — In this Thursday February 25, 2010 file photo, released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Hezbollah leader sheik Hassan Nasrallah, left, speaks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, upon their arrival for a dinner, in Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo/SANA, File)

28/10/12

Iraqi authorities have for a second time this month ordered an Iranian cargo plane heading to Syria to land for inspection in Baghdad to ensure it is not carrying weapons, an Iraqi official said on Sunday.

The move may be aimed at easing U.S. concerns that Iraq has become a route for shipments of Iranian military supplies that might help Syrian President Bashar Assad battle rebel forces in his country’s civil war.

The head of the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority, Nassir Bandar, said that the inspection took place Saturday because officials were concerned the plane might be carrying arms. The inspectors allowed the plane to continue its journey after they determined there were no weapons onboard, he said.

“Our experts found that the plane was carrying only medical supplies and foodstuffs. So the flight was allowed to proceed,” Bandar said.

Bandar said Iraqi authorities would continue searching planes suspecting of hauling arms to Syria. Iraqi officials have repeatedly said they would not allow their country or airspace to be a corridor for arms shipments to either Syrian government forces or rebels.

Iraq ordered another Iranian cargo plane to land for inspection on Oct. 2. No weapons were found in that search either.

Last month, Iraq banned a North Korea plane from using its airspace over suspicions it was carrying weapons to Syria.

American officials have expressed concern that Iranian planes may be ferrying weapons over Iraq, and they have pressed Baghdad to take stronger action to ensure that no transfers occur.

Also in Iraq, police said three people were killed and eight other wounded when two bombs exploded near a market southeast of Baghdad.

Police officials say the simultaneous attacks Sunday morning took place in Madain, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of Baghdad, as shoppers started to arrive.

Medics in a nearby hospital confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Violence has ebbed in Iraq, but insurgent attacks are still frequent. Sunday’s blasts followed a string of attacks that killed 40 people in the Iraqi capital a day earlier. Saturday was the deadliest day in nearly six weeks

28/10/12

BAGHDAD — Militant Sunnis from Iraq have been going to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad for months. Now Iraqi Shiites are joining the battle in increasing numbers, but on the government’s side, transplanting Iraq’s explosive sectarian conflict to a civil war that is increasingly fueled by religious rivalry.

Some Iraqi Shiites are traveling to Tehran first, where the Iranian government, Syria’s chief regional ally, is flying them to Damascus, Syria’s capital. Others take tour buses from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, on the pretext of making a pilgrimage to an important Shiite shrine in Damascus that for months has been protected by armed Iraqis. While the buses do carry pilgrims, Iraqi Shiite leaders say, they are also ferrying weapons, supplies and fighters to aid the Syrian government.

“Dozens of Iraqis are joining us, and our brigade is growing day by day,” Ahmad al-Hassani, a 25-year-old Iraqi fighter, said by telephone from Damascus. He said that he arrived there two months ago, taking a flight from Tehran.

The Iraqi Shiites are joining forces with Shiite fighters from Lebanon and Iran, driving Syria ever closer to becoming a regional sectarian battlefield.

Lebanon, which has 100,000 Syrian refugees, was pushed to the brink this month when a Sunni intelligence chief was assassinated in a bombing. Many Lebanese blamed the Syrian government and its allies for the attack. Jordan, sheltering more than 180,000 refugees, has struggled to contain the violence on its border, which claimed the life of a Jordanian soldier in a firefight with extremists last week. Turkey, with more than 100,000 refugees, has traded artillery fire with Syria since Syrian shelling killed five civilians near the border early this month.

Now Iraq, still haunted by its own sectarian carnage, has become increasingly entangled in the Syrian war. And Iran, which, like Iraq, is majority-Shiite, appears to be playing a critical role in mobilizing Iraqis.

According to interviews with Shiite leaders here, the Iraqi volunteers are receiving weapons and supplies from the Syrian and Iranian governments, and Iran has organized travel for Iraqis willing to fight in Syria on the government’s side.

Iran has also pressed the Iraqis to organize committees to recruit young fighters. Such committees have recently been formed in Iraq’s Shiite heartland in the south and in Diyala Province, a mixed province north of Baghdad.

Many Iraqi Shiites increasingly see the Syrian war — which pits the Sunni majority against a government dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam — as a battle for the future of Shiite faith. This sectarian cast has been heightened by the influx of Sunni extremists aligned with Al Qaeda, who have joined the fight against the Syrian government much as they did in the last decade against the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

“Syria is now open to all fighters, and Al Qaeda is playing on the chords of sectarianism, which will spur reactions from the Shiites, as happened in Iraq,” said Ihsan al-Shammari, an analyst and professor at Baghdad University’s College of Political Science. “My biggest fear from the Syrian crisis is the repercussions for Iraq, where the ashes of sectarian violence still exist.”

One young Iraqi, Ali Hatem, who was planning to travel to Tehran, then to Damascus, said he saw the call to fight for Mr. Assad as part of a “divine duty.”

Abu Mohamed, an official in Babil Province with the Sadrist Trend, a political party aligned with the populist Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said he recently received an invitation from the Sadrists’ leadership to a meeting in Najaf to discuss a pilgrimage to the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, a holy Shiite site in Damascus.

“We knew that this is not the real purpose because the situation is not suitable for such a visit,” he said. “When we went to Najaf, they told us it’s a call for fighting in Syria against the Salafis,” ultraconservative Sunni Muslims.

A senior Sadrist official and former member of Parliament, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that convoys of buses from Najaf, ostensibly for pilgrims, were carrying weapons and fighters to Damascus.

Iran, which has been accused of sending weapons and fighters to Syria, may have employed the same ruse. After the Syrian rebels detained 48 Iranians in Damascus in August, the Iranian government said they were pilgrims, and expressed outrage that they had been kidnapped by the rebels. According to American intelligence officials, at least

Religious warriors, however, do not always make such distinctions. In Diyala Province, still a hotbed of Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, Shiite leaders say they are seeking volunteers for a “combat regiment” to defend the Zeinab shrine against “the holders of extremist Salafi ideology backed by gulf states,” according to Abu Ali al-Moussawi, the head of a recruitment committee. He said that 70 men from Diyala had recently left to join the fight in Syria.

Abu Sajad, who moved to Damascus in 2008 and joined the fight after the rebellion began, said he and other Iraqi fighters were indeed fighting to protect the shrine. A former fighter in Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq, he said he was given weapons and supplies by the Syrian government.

But as the fight evolved, and Iraqis began to be killed and kidnapped, it reminded him too much of the Iraq he left, and so he recently returned to his home in Basra.

“I can tell that things are going to be crazy in Syria,” he said. “It’s a sectarian war, and it’s even worse than the one we had here, which was between the militias and the political parties. In Syria, all of the people are involved. You can feel the hatred between the Sunnis and the Alawites. They will do anything to get rid of each other.”

Iraqi Shiites did not initially take sides in Syria. Many Shiites here despise Mr. Assad for his affiliation with the Baath Party, the party of Saddam Hussein, and the support he gave foreign Sunni fighters during the Iraq war.

But as the uprising became an armed rebellion that began to attract Sunni extremists, many Shiites came to see the war in existential terms. Devout Shiites in Iraq often describe the Syrian conflict as the beginning of the fulfillment of a Shiite prophecy that presages the end of time by predicting that an army, headed by a devil-like figure named Sufyani, will rise in Syria and then conquer Iraq’s Shiites.

It was the bombing of an important shrine in Samarra in 2006 that escalated Iraq’s sectarian civil war, and many Iraqis see the events in Syria as replicating their own recent bloody history, but with even greater potential consequences.

Hassan al-Rubaie, a Shiite cleric from Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, said, “The destruction of the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab in Syria will mean the start of sectarian civil war in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.”