Syria sending militias to Iran for training

Activists say Assad's government is sending guerrilla fighters to train at secret base in Iran to bolster its armed forces. 

HOMS PROVINCE, Syria - The Syrian government is sending members of its irregular militias for guerrilla combat training at a secret base in Iran, in a move to bolster its armed forces drained by two years of fighting and defections, fighters and activists said.

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The discreet program has been described as an open secret in some areas loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is trying to crush a revolt against his family's four-decade hold on power. A Syrian government security source, who declined to be named, denied that Syria was sending fighters to Iran. "We train our own special forces for this type of combat," he said. "Since 2006 we have had units trained in guerrilla warfare, why would we need to send people to Iran?"

 But if the reports by Syrian fighters are true, the move to train combatants in Iran suggests that their country's increasingly regionalized conflict has grown well beyond - and could even outlast - a battle for power between Assad's circle and the opposition. The fighters also appear to come largely from minority groups that have supported Assad against the mostly Sunni Muslim-led uprising. Such a move could exacerbate the dangerous sectarian dimensions of a conflict that has turned into a civil war that has cost the lives of more than 70,000 people.