In an abandoned complex in the Syrian desert city of Palmyra, a piece of paper bearing a motivational slogan in Farsi is pinned to a rough wall.
“No beginning is more beautiful than hello, and no wish is more valuable than health. I wish you both.”
Iranian school textbooks for adults litter the floor. A 2021-2022 calendar bearing the faces of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late military commander leader Qassem Suleimani is taped to a wall. In one room lie ammunition packs, military garb and Iranian anti-tank rounds.
The complex, once a prison, was used as a housing and military base by the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan-majority, Iran-backed unit that fought for the Assad regime, local officials said. Posters commemorating the group’s fallen fighters line the walls.
The base was one of several used by Iran-backed militias in Palmyra, some spanning whole residential blocks, before former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad was toppled by a rebel offensive in December.
“It was a kind of weapons and ammunition warehouse, which they used for storing munitions for large explosions,” Zaher Salim, a local official who entered the city soon after the Iran-backed groups fled to neighbouring countries, told The National. “There were also sectarian banners there,” he added.
Iran was one of the closest allies of the Assad regime and its sway extended across much of Syria. Tehran, motivated by a desire to build up weapons bases, profit from resources and extend its sphere of influence to the Mediterranean coast, sent Iran-backed Afghan and Iraqi militias, as well as Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, to prop up Mr Al Assad after civil war broke out in 2011.
The departure of the Fatemiyoun Brigade and other Iran-backed forces from Palmyra is a microcosm of the disintegration of Iran’s military, political and economic influence in Syria since Mr Al Assad’s fall, according to Syrian officials and Iranian observers and businesspeople interviewed by The National. In Syria, Tehran has lost its one state in its anti-western and anti-Israel “axis of resistance” alliance, confounding its regional policies and strategic routes across the Middle East.
Under Mr Al Assad, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful military force charged with cementing the "axis of resistance", posted proxy forces across Syria, from the eastern border with Iraq, across the Syrian central desert, to Quneitra in the south-west, neighbouring the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said Amer Jumaa, a Syrian military commander for the Palmyra area.
“Most of the influence was not the Syrian army, but Iranian and Iran-backed militias from other countries, such as Afghans and Iraqis,” said Mr Jumaa, speaking to The National at an old tourist resort being used as a base by Syria’s new armed forces. “They had heavy weapons with a long range.”
The presence of textbooks for adults in the Fatemiyoun base in Palmyra, including learning materials for the Farsi language, pointed to the recruitment of underprivileged Afghans, possibly living in Iran as refugees, to fight on the frontlines in Syria.
On one wall, graffiti written in crude Farsi handwriting reads, “Follow the orders of the supreme leader to always be blessed,” a reference to Mr Khamenei.
Observers have long reported such recruitment by Iran, but the materials uncovered by The National in Palmyra are among the most potent evidence of the practice.
“Exploiting their abhorrent living conditions, the IRGC's Quds Force has recruited thousands of men from the impoverished [Afghan] community as cannon fodder, promising them and their families citizenship, and at times just a minimum wage and housing,” Khosro Isfahani, an independent Iran analyst, told The National.
The Quds Force was the overseas operations arm of the IRGC, which was led by Gen Suleimani.
Regional network disrupted
As the only state in the “axis of resistance”, the loss of influence in Syria has had a knock-on effect on Iran’s ability to maintain its armed networks across the region, notably Hezbollah, which it has backed since the 1980s.
“There is no Iranian influence left at all,” Mr Jumaa said.
In the town of Al Qusayr, on Syria's border with Lebanon, bases used by Hezbollah were abandoned by its fighters as Mr Al Assad fell. Iranian and Lebanese security chiefs in the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab near Damascus also fled.
Diplomatic ties are in a state of limbo and the Iranian embassy in Damascus is locked up. A reception booth at the gate is scarred with bullet holes, and posters of Gen Suleimani that once adorned the frontage are torn to shreds. Nothing remains of the consular section, which was destroyed in an Israeli strike in April last year that prompted Iran's first direct attack on Israel.
Syrian commander
“Syria's geopolitical significance for Iran, particularly in terms of its role in the ‘axis of resistance’, was highly unique,” Javad Heirannia, a Tehran-based political analyst, told The National. “The fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime will lead to a reduction in Iran's influence in Syria and weaken the ‘axis of resistance,’ even in the region.”
The rise of Iran-sceptic leaders such as Syria’s transitional president Ahmad Al Shara, and the western-leaning Joseph Aoun in Lebanon, has made the regional political situation for Iran “increasingly difficult and complex", Mr Heirannia said.
IRGC advisers were embedded in Syrian army units, according to Col Salem Al Antri, commander of a western-backed Syrian force stationed at the Al Tanf garrison on the border with Jordan. Before Mr Al Assad’s fall, his men frequently came under drone attack by Iran-backed militants in Iraq – assaults that have since halted.
“Let’s say that Iran is in a state of shock about what happened,” Col Al Antri, who leads the Syrian Free Army unit at Al Tanf, told The National. “Their losses in Syria were a devastating loss for the entire Iranian project in the region, not only in Syria.”
Iran’s presence was harmful to many ordinary Syrians. In Palmyra, residents described how Iran-backed groups occupied civilian homes after their owners had fled, and how these later became targets in Israeli strikes against IRGC-linked locations.
Ismail Al Shalil, 22, whose family home was destroyed in one of these strikes, believes that as well as building a military sphere of influence, Iran was motivated to build up a presence in Palmyra because of the largely untapped fossil fuel and mineral resources in the surrounding desert.
“Iran came here for the phosphates, oil, and antiquities of Palmyra that they extracted. The Iranians coveted these resources,” Mr Al Shalil told The National. “They supported Assad only to reap more benefits than the cost of supporting the regime."
He said his home was in an area previously used as a base and sleeping quarters by Iran-backed groups, and hit by an Israeli air strike in November last year. He and his family fled Palmyra in 2015 when ISIS militants seized the city, followed by Iran-backed militias. He spent nearly a decade in Rukban, a desert displacement camp near Al Tanf, and only returned after Mr Al Assad fell.
“They [the Iran-backed militias] took my house. I had no say in this, how am I supposed to feel?” said Mr Al Shalil, who is unemployed. “If I had been able to come to my house from the beginning and take it from them, I would have taken it back. But I couldn’t.”
From what he has heard, some young men who returned to Palmyra from Rukban in a 2018 Russian-mediated deal were later drafted by Iranians in the city, making others wary of returning. "For example, Iranians used to capture young men and force them to join the Quds Force and their militias," he said.
Economic influence
Alongside its military and political influence, Iran was also deeply involved in Syria's economy, which buckled under the weight of conflict and corruption. Both countries are subject to strict sanctions regimes, and Iran was among the few nations willing and, to an extent, able to work in Assad-era Syria.
Iran granted Syria four credit lines totalling $7.6 billion over the course of the war, enabling Damascus to import essential goods such as oil and food. The loans also enabled the granting of contracts to Iranian companies, including Mapna, an energy giant that in 2018 secured a deal to build a 540-megawatt power plant in the coastal province of Latakia.
Mahrad Abad, a member of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce representatives' council , told The National that after the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Iran had “ambitious goals” to grow the value of imports and exports to more than $1 billion annually. The target was never reached and over the course of the war, trade was between $200 million and $400 million annually, he said.
Trade development faced hurdles, including the difficulty of moving goods from Iran to Syria, and financial complications largely related to sanctions.
“To a certain extent the ties improved, but because the infrastructure, whether from the Iranian or Syrian side, was not ready, the ties did not expand hugely,” Mr Abad said.
Iranian contractors completed “decent projects” in Syria but “sometimes because of the sanctions on Iran, they could not retrieve their money, and they encountered problems with technological development,” Mr Abad said. Most investment was backed by the Iranian state, he said, as private businesses preferred to make foreign investments in more stable countries.
Iranian businesspeople with an understanding of Syria told The National that the country was not a particularly attractive market, contracts were not finalised, and projects were sometimes halted due to lack of funds.
Some researchers say that some Iranian firms in Syria could have been front companies, making their activities difficult to track. Dima Mohammad, a researcher at Karam Shaar Advisory Limited, which specialises in Syria’s political economy, said she had observed a gradual disappearance of Iranian companies from the market since Mr Al Assad fell.
“Only traces remain,” she told The National.
The National contacted 16 companies listed on a record of 108 Iranian firms reportedly working in Syria, compiled by the Syrian Legal Development Programme, a London-based organisation. The others were either uncontactable or did not appear in internet searches.
None of the firms, including Kaveh, which opened a glass plant outside Damascus, and the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, responded to questions about whether they were still operating in Syria.
Tehran-based analyst
Mr Abad said that Iranian firms in Syria have been “in a state of ambiguity” since Mr Al Assad fell and that their activity in the country was “almost zero”.
“There were several Iranian factories in Syria which have either gone, or have closed until it can be seen what the new relationship will be between Syria and Iran, and what they can do with their projects,” he said.
The Syrian Trade Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Will Iran return?
Turkey’s influence in Syria has bloomed since Mr Al Assad’s fall and its actions will probably play a key role in Tehran’s ability to rebuild influence in Syria, analysts said. Ankara – often at loggerheads with Iran over regional policy – has newfound sway in Damascus and could curb Iran’s ability to rebuild networks across the country. “It seems that the future of Iran-Syria relations will be heavily influenced by the variable of Turkey,” said Mr Heirannia.
Having seen years of Iranian backing for the former regime, Syria’s new leaders are not warm to the idea of letting Tehran back into the country.
“The Jawlani regime is unlikely to seek extensive relations with Iran,” Mr Heirannia said, referring to Syria’s new President Ahmad Al Shara by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani.
Iran is aware of the new juncture, and officials there have discussed Syria with Russia, which was the Assad regime’s other major backer, in comments strangely similar to those of western officials.
“Our position is clear and unchanged, and we emphasise the need to preserve the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Syria,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a media briefing last week, in reference to Israeli incursions in the south of the country and federalist ambitions from US-backed Kurdish militias in the north-east.
All parties in Syria need to work to stabilise the country so it does not become a launchpad for “abuse by extremist and terrorist groups”, Mr Baghaei said.
Yet some Syrians fear that Iran will become a destabilising factor.
“Maybe there might be situations in which they build on the chaos, they use the chaos to infiltrate and keep Syria in a state of instability,” said Col Al Antri.
The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
The debt that Syria owes to Iran from the credit lines granted to the Assad regime may force talks between the two countries at some point, as money owed does not disappear with a change of regime. The amount owed is not clear, although Mr Abad said there was talk of $3 billion. The new leaders in Damascus will probably have to carry out an audit to determine how much is owed, and whether they can argue a case against paying back the balance.
Mr Abad hoped that “the investments that the Iranian state and private sector made in Syria do not disappear and the investment can be recouped, or they can restart their activities”.
Many Iranian businesses appear keen to work in the country again. The Tehran-based Iran-Syria Chamber of Commerce has been posting news of Syria’s political and economic developments since Mr Al Assad’s fall, indicating an Iranian interest in re-entering the market. Recent posts on the organisation's Telegram channel include news of a tender for a new power plant in rural Damascus province.
As for ordinary Syrians, they want more help to rebuild what was destroyed by Iran-backed militias and the Israeli strikes against them.
Like so many others in the country, Mr Al Shalil in Palmyra is now counting on international support for his home and his city, which largely lies abandoned, to be rebuilt.
“If I get the chance to rebuild the house, I will come back and live here,” he said. “Because our land, our home, our family and our relatives are all here.”
