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العربية 
The former vice president of Syria, Farouq al-Sharaa, who is considered by many as a “wise, long-sighted politician”, has been reportedly under house arrest in Damascus for months. According to new revelations by an unnamed, prominent Iraqi politician, the reasons behind this drastic measure were more to do with al-Sharaa’s position on Iran’s interference in Syria than his opposition to the military response to the peaceful protests at the beginning of the Syrian revolution.
Al-Sharaa was reportedly opposed to Sepah Pasdaran, Hezbollah Lebanon and Iraqi shia fighters being brought in to fight in Syria, because he believed this will encourage other regional powers to interfere in the country and militarize the uprising – which is, indeed, what happened. He was apparently also pushing for a more prominent role for Russia and Saudi Arabic to play in reaching a political settlement, which the Iranian government felt would threaten its influence in Syria and limit its own role.
But the more surprising news is that al-Sharaa has been under house arrest not by Syrian police or army but by Sepah Pasdaran. According to the Iraqi source, Sepah asked Bashar Assad to guard al-Sharaa’s two houses in Damascus themselves, because they “feared” that any Syrian armed force that guards him, including the elite Republican Guards, who are known to be loyal to al-Assad and his brother Maher, could “collude with him [al-Sharaa] and smuggle him out of Syria.”
Source: Al-Seyassah newspaper, http://tinyurl.com/kfkhccc
COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR:
This is not the first time that we hear of details clearly indicating that Sepah Pasdaran are the ones who are effectively in charge and in control on the ground in Syria. We recently reported on Hezbollah fighters, who are trained and directed by Sepah Qods, not trusting the Syrian army and preferring to carry out their military operations in Syria on their own. Now we have this, and a few more things in the pipeline. All for president Rouhani’s ceremonial speech about Iran’s non-interference policy!
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