Iranian force is aiding Syrian crackdown, the New York Times said Thursday, quoting the European Union (EU). It said that the EU was set to level sanctions against Iran's Al-Quds military force as it accused Iran of giving technical and material support to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in his effort to crush the five-month-old uprising. The United Nations said the crackdown has killed 2,200 people since March. There was no immediate reaction from the Syrian or the Iranian governments about the sanctions, which are the first to single out Iran in connection with the Syrian uprising. The decision was welcomed by activists in Damascus, Syria, who have refused to back down in the face of the crackdown. “The sanctions are great and very needed,” said an opposition figure from Damascus who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisal. “But I don't know how much they will help us on the ground to get rid of this regime. It is going to be a long battle.” The European Union said in a statement published in its official journal that Al Quds, an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, “provided technical assistance, equipment and support to the Syrian security services to repress civilian protest movements.” The United States and other countries have also accused Tehran of aiding Mr. Assad's crackdown. British newspapers have quoted unnamed Western diplomats in recent weeks as saying that Iran was providing riot-control gear and surveillance equipment to the Assad government. The secretive Al-Quds force is an elite and ideologically grounded unit that was created to protect and promote the Iranian revolution. It carries out operations beyond Iran's borders and was responsible for initially training and arming the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. The list of sanctions also names five Syrian generals, as well as Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister and special Assad envoy; Munir Adnuf, the deputy chief of the Syrian Army; and Samir Hassan, a businessman that it identifies as one of the government's financiers.
