World Bulletin / News Desk

A commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has been killed in Syria after volunteering to defend a shrine in Damascus, the Iranian Mehr news agency said on Monday.

Commander Mohammad Jamalizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the southeastern province of Kerman was killed in the last few days by "Wahhabi terrorists", the agency said, giving no more details.

The report could not be independently confirmed.

Jamalizadeh was a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and then served in anti-smuggling units. He did not travel to Syria for the IRGC, but volunteered to defend the Sayyida Zainab mosque in the southern suburbs of Damascus, Mehr said.

Jamalizadeh's funeral is to take place on Tuesday in Kerman, capital of the province of the same name.

"As we have said many times before, Iran has no battalions in Syria and only advisers are present to transfer their defensive experience to the defenders of that country," Sepah news agency quoted GeneralRamazan Sharif, head of public relations for IRGC, as saying on Monday.

Video footage seized and posted online by Syrian rebels in September showed armed Iranians in military uniform working on the front lines alongside Syrian government soldiers.

Iranian media later reported that both the cameraman and the Iranian commander in the footage had been killed.