Iran, part of the Middle East coalition built by SOS Heinz Kerry.
Via LWJ
An Islamic State sniper gunned down a general in Iran’s Qods Force who was advising Iraqi troops and Shiite militias in the battleground city of Samarra in central Iraq.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi was “martyred” while serving in Samara, close to the “shrine of Imam Hassan Askari” on Dec. 27, 2014, Jahan News, a hard-line Iranian media outlet reported. Taqavi was killed by an Islamic State “sniper,” ABNA noted.
Taqavi served as an “adviser to the [Iraqi] Army and the popular mobilization of the Iraqi people,” a reference to the Shiite militias that fight alongside the Iraqi military. Iran’s Qods Force, the expeditionary special operations arm of the IRGC, is tasked with supporting the Iraqi military and Shiite militias, including the Badr Brigade, Hezbollah Brigades, Asaib al Haq (League of the Righteous), and Muqtada al Sadr’s Promised Day Brigade (or Peace Brigade). The Shiite militias have been instrumental in reinforcing beleaguered and demoralized Iraqi forces, and have helped retake some areas in Iraq, including Jurf al Sakhar and Amerli.
The IRGC said that Taqavi was “one of the commanders of the Ramazan Base, during the sacred defense,” of Iran during the Iran-Iraqi war from 1980-88. The Ramazan Base “was important” to the the Iranians, said Ali Alfoneh, a Senior Fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies who specializes on Iran.
“During the war with Iraq, they [the Iranians] directed operations behind enemy lines” in Iraq from the Ramazan Base, Alfoneh said.