Iranian Revolutionary Guard general killed in Aleppo

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A brigadier general from Iran's Revolutionary Guards had been killed during fighting in Aleppo, Iranian news sites reported Wednesday Ahmad Ghulami was killed on Tuesday by "takfiri terrorists", a label used by Shi'ite Muslims to describe Sunni Muslim militants, according to the Tasnim news site. Iran and its Shi'ite allies, which include fighters from Afghanistan ad Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are fighting to support Syrian President Bashar al Assad while Saudi Arabia, Turkey and some Gulf states are funding opposition fighters. Iran has announced the death of half a dozen generals in Syria, and a much larger number of less senior officers since 2012. A report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in March this year said that 342 Iranians have died fighting in Syria since January 2012. Ghulami was a commander during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and took part in several well-known battles, Tasnim reported. He had retired before heading to Syria. "Because of the great deal of experience he had in military matters he went to Syria and Iraq and took over the responsibility for training some of the resistance forces," Akbar Baqeri Dolabi, a military colleague, told Tasnim. (Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Dominic Evans)