AKIPRESS.COM - Iran has sent hundreds of troops into Syria under the cover of Russian airpower in preparation for an attack on rebels fighting government troops.

Tehran’s first major deployment in Syria’s civil war appeared to be paving the way for a major regime-backed offensive against rebel forces around the shattered second city of Aleppo, reports Telegraph.

Iran has been the regime’s closest ally throughout the four-year conflict, bankrolling President Bashar al-Assad's war effort and sending top military advisers to direct the fight on key battle fronts.

Iranian and Syrian officials have long maintained that Tehran has advisers and military experts in Syria, but Wednesday's news was the first confirmation of Iranian fighters taking part in combat operations.

A regional official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the troops fighters began arriving in Syria as Russia began its airstrikes against rebel positions around the regime's western heartland.

He said troops were arriving in the capital, Damascus, before travelling to Mr Assad's coastal stronghold of Latakia for deployment in the central province of Hama or north into Aleppo province.

Russian helicopters and warplanes have been supporting a regime ground offensive in Hama to push Islamist and relatively moderate rebel groups from a strategically important plain at the base of Latakia.