Senior IRGC commander killed in Syria

The reports gave no indication on the cause of death although a UK based war monitor said he was assassinated

A woman walks past a poster depicting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria March 5, 2020. REUTERS/Yamam Al Shaar

A senior member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Farhad Dabirian, was killed in Syria on Friday, Fars news agency reported, without giving details of how he died.

The agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, described Dabirian as a "defender of Sayida Zainab shrine," the holy Shiite Muslim site south of Damascus, and as a former commander of the Guards in Palmyra, the ancient city in central Syria.

The Guards and Shiite proxy groups from other countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's military in the nine-year-old civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation which reports on the war, said a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards' commander was assassinated in the Sayeda Zeinab area south of Damascus.

He is just the latest in a string of senior Iranian and Iran-linked militants to be killed on and off the battlefield in Syria.

Several Hezbollah commanders have been assassinated or targeted in airstrikes while in Syria.