A SENIOR Iranian military official yesterday ruled out the possibility of withdrawal of Iranian military advisers from Syria, the Xinhua news agency reported.

“Iran and Syria enjoy deep relations that would not be influenced by the propaganda of anyone,” Brigadier-General Massoud Jazayeri told  Iran’s private news agency Tasnim yesterday.

Iranians, unlike US military forces, have gone to Syria at the request of the Damascus government, Jazayeri said, stressing “the biggest fear of Israel is the presence of Muslim fighters in its proximity”.

 The US and Israel are making “desperate efforts to change this situation”, he added.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel might launch more attacks against Iran to prevent it from establishing a presence in Syria.

Israel reportedly carried out a series of deadly airstrikes in Syria, targeting the positions of Iran and Hizbollah, a Lebanese Shia militia, which fights alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.           

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani said that claims about negotiations between Iran and Israel over the former’s role in Syria were totally “baseless”, Press TV reported.

 “The spread of such baseless rumours is a futile effort to give legitimacy to the zionist regime and weaken the resistance front’s will in its confrontation with Israel,” he was quoted as saying. – Bernama, June 4, 2018.