Iranian commander killed by ISIS in Syria


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, despite Iran's denial of participating in military actions in the country.General Hossein Hamedani was killed late 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 was a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and was made deputy chief commander of the elite forces in 2005.In the biggest deployment of Iranian forces yet, sources told Reuters last week that hundreds of troops had arrived since late September to take part in a major ground offensive planned in west and northwest Syria.Iran denies having any military forces in Syria.