Reporter in the Middle East, BBC World Service
BBCCemetery in half staffing products on bunk beds, thrown away military uniform and abandoned weapons are the remains of a sharp retreat from this base that once belonged to Iran and its affiliated groups in Syria.
The scene tells about panic. The forces located here escaped with a small warning, leaving behind a ten -year presence, which unfolded in a few weeks.
Iran has been the most critical ally of Syrian President Bashar al -Assad for over 10 years. He posted military advisers, mobilized foreign militias and invest great funds in the war in Syria.
Its elite Islamic Revolutionary Corps of the Guard (IRGC) built deep underground networks, supplying weapons and training to thousands of fighters. For Iran, this was also included in the “security belt” against Israel.
We are near the city of Khan Shaihun in Idlib province. Before the Assad’s regime fell on December 8, it was one of the key strategic places for the IRGC and its union groups.
From the main road the entrance is barely visible, hidden behind a pile of sand and stones. The watch tower on the top of the hill, still depicted in the colors of the Iranian flag, goes out.
The name of the base is confirmed by the name of the base: the position of the martyr Zakhdei – named after Mohammad Reza Zahdi, the chief commander of the IRGC, who was killed in the alleged Israeli airline for the Iran Consulate in Syria on April 1, 2024.
Recently ordered accessories – we found receipts on chocolates, rice, culinary alley – believe that everyday life continued here until the last moments. But now there are new passengers-two armed fighters of Uighur from Hayat Tahrira Al-Shama (HTS), an Islamist militant whose leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has become a new temporary president of Syria.
Uighurs suddenly arrived in a military vehicle, asking for our accreditation in the media.
“Iranians were here. All of them escaped,” says one of them, speaking in the native language, Turkish dialect. “Everything you see here is from them. Even these onions and the remnants of the products.”
The boxes full of fresh onions in the yard are now germinated.
The base is a maze of tunnels dug deep into white rocky hills. Some rooms have bunk beds without windows. The roof of one of the corridors is thrown into the fabric in the colors of the Iranian flag, and there are several Persian books on the rocky shelf.
They left behind documents containing confidential information. In Persian, they have detailed information about the personal information of the soldiers, the codes of the military, home addresses, the names of the couple and the mobile phone number in Iran. From the names it was clear that several fighters in this base were from the Afghan brigade, which was formed by Iran to fight in Syria.
Sources related to Iran groups reported that basic houses are mostly Afghan forces accompanied by Iranian “military advisers” and their Iranian commanders.
The main justification for Tehran for his military participation in Syria was “fight against Jihad groups” and protect the “Saints Shrines” from radical Sunni militants.
He created paramilitary groups mainly Afghan, Pakistani and Iraqi militants.
However, when the last moment came, Iran was unprepared. The retreat orders reached some bases at the very last moment. “Developments happened so quickly,” tells me an older member supported by Iran Iraq. “The order was just to take his backpack and leave.”
Many sources close to the IRGC reported that most forces had to flee to Iraq, and some were ordered to go to Lebanon or Russian bases to evacuate the Russians from Syria.
The HTS fighter, Mohammad Al Rabat, witnessed the promotion of the group from Idlib to Aleppo and the capital of Syria Damascus.
He says they thought their operation would take about a year and better, they “captured Aleppo in three months.” But, to their surprise, they entered Aleppo in a matter of days.
The rapid drop of the regime was caused by a chain of events after Hamas attack on October 7 on Israel.
This attack led to the escalation of Israeli air strikes against the IRGC and Iranian groups in Syria and the war against another key Iranian-Lining group “Hezbollah”, whose leader was killed in an air strike.
This is a “situation with psychological collapse” for Iran and Hezbollah was the main fall, says a 35-year-old fighter.
But the most important blow occurred from the inside: there was a gap between Assad and his allies associated with Iran.
“There was a complete gap of trust and military cooperation between them. The IRGC group was blamed for betrayal and believing that he refused his seats in Israel.”
When we pass through Khan Shaihun, we face the street drawn in the colors of the Iranian flag. This leads to a school building used as an Iranian Kokwater headquarters.
On the wall at the entrance to the toilets, the slogans read: “Down with Israel” and “Down with the USA”.
It was obvious that these staffs were also evacuated in no time. We found the documents attributed to “very sensitive”.
65-year-old Abdullah and his family are among the few locals who remained and lived here near the IRGC groups. He says this life was hard.
His house is located just a few meters from the Kakvatter headquarters, and there are deep trenches between them.
“The movement was forbidden at night,” he says.
His neighbor’s house turned into a military post. “They were sitting there with a weapon aimed at the road, treating us all as suspects,” he recalls.
Most fighters didn’t even talk to -Arabic, he says. “These were Afghans, Iranians, Hezbollah. But we called them all Iranians because Iran controls them.”
Abdullah’s wife, the jury says that it is happy that the “Iranian militias” left, but still remembers the “tense” moment before the cancellation. She thought they were trapped in CrossFire, when groups supported by Iran, strengthen their positions and prepare for the fight, but then “they just disappeared in a few hours.”
“It was an occupation. Iranian occupation,” says Abda, who, like others, just returned here with his family 10 years later. His house also became a military base.
I noticed this anger to Iran and a softer attitude towards Russia in many conversations with the Syrians.
I asked for a robbery, the HTS fighter why it was.
“The Russians threw bombs from the sky and besides, they were in their bases, while the Iranians and their militias on earth interacted. People felt their presence, and many were not satisfied,” he explained.
This feeling is reflected in the policy of new Syria’s leaders to Iran.
The new authorities have banned Iranian citizens together with Israelis entering Syria. But there is no such ban against the Russians.
The Iranian Embassy, which after the fall of the regime was stormed by the angry participants of the action remains closed.
The reaction of Iranian officials to the development in Syria was contradictory.
While Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on the Syrian youth to “resist” those who “brought instability” to Syria, the Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accepted a more balanced opinion.
It states that the country “supports any government that supports the Syrian people.”
In his first interviews, Syrian’s new leader called his victory over Assad as an “end of the Iranian project”. But he did not rule out “balanced” relations with Tehran.
At the moment, Iran is not welcome in Syria. After many years of expanding its military presence, everything built by Tehran is now in the ruins, both on the battlefield, and it seems, in the eyes of a large part of the Syria.
Returning to the abandoned base, Iran’s military expansion in recent days. There were more tunnels near the camp, which apparently began the field hospital. The cement on the walls was still wet and the paint is fresh.
But now, what is left behind, testifies to a short struggle – a few bullets and a military form covered with blood.
