2 Iranian soldiers killed in Syria

ISTANBUL (AA) - Two soldiers from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in Syria, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

The agency said the bodies of the two soldiers had been sent back to their hometown of Qom, southwest of Tehran.

A staunch supporter of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Iran has sent thousands of troops to Syria to support his forces fighting opposition groups since 2011.

Tehran is believed to have lost more than 1,000 troops in the six-year conflict.

The Syrian conflict erupted after the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and upwards of 10 million displaced across the war-torn country, according to the UN. The Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll at more than 470,000.

* Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara