Middle East correspondent, BBC World Service
BbcMailed semi -finished food of two -storey beds, discarded military uniforms and abandoned weapons – these are the remains of a sharp withdrawal from this base that once belonged to Iran and related groups in Syria.
The scene tells a story of panic. The forces located here escaped with a small warning, leaving behind a decade of presence, which has only been figured out for weeks.
Iran was the most critical ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for more than 10 years. He unleashed military advisers, mobilized foreign militias and invests hard in the war in Syria.
Its elite Islamic revolutionary security body (IRGC) has built deep networks of underground bases, delivering weapons and training to thousands of fighters. For Iran, it was also part of his “security belt” against Israel.
We are near the city of Khan Shahun in Idlib province. Before the Assad regime fell on December 8, it was one of the key strategic places for IRGC and its allied groups.
From the main road, the entrance is barely visible, hidden behind piles of sand and rocks. Sora on a hill, still painted in the colors of the Iranian flag, looks at the base.
Receipt notebook confirms the name of the base: the position of the martyr Poddie – named after Mohammed Reza Poddie, a top IRGC commander, who was killed in an alleged Israeli air strike by Iran's consulate on April 1, 2024.
Recently ordered deliveries – we found receipts for chocolate candy, rice, cooking oil – they suggest that everyday life continues here until the last moments. But now the base has new inhabitants of Hyigur from Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist belligerent group whose leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has become the new temporary president of Syria.
Uyghurs arrived suddenly in a military vehicle, asking for our media accreditation.
“The Iranians were here. Everyone escaped,” says one of them, speaking in their mother tongue, a dialect in Turkish. “Whatever you see here is one of them. Even these onions and residual foods.”
Boxes filled with fresh onions in the yard have already germinated.
The base is a maze of tunnels dug deep into white rocky hills. In some rooms there are two -storey beds without windows. The roof of one of the corridors is draped in fabric in the colors of the Iranian flag and has several Persian books on a rocky shelf.
They left behind documents containing sensitive information. All in Persian, they have details of the personal information of the fighters, the codes of military officials, the home addresses, the spouse names and the numbers of the mobile phones in Iran. It is clear from the names that several fighters in this base were from the Afghan Brigade, which was formed by Iran to fight in Syria.
Sources associated with Iran -backed groups have told BBC Persian that base houses mainly Afghan forces, accompanied by Iranian “military advisers” and their Iranian commanders.
Tehran's main justification for his military participation in Syria was to “fight the jihadi groups” and to protect the “Shiite Saints” against radical Sunni fighters.
He created paramilitary groups from mainly Afghan, Pakistani and Iraqi fighters.
Still, when the last moment came, Iran was unprepared. The withdrawal orders reached some bases at the last moment. “The development happened so quickly,” Iraqi Iraqi's senior member tells me. “The order was just to take your backpack and leave.”
Numerous sources close to IRGC have told the BBC that most forces have to escape to Iraq, and some are ordered to go to Lebanon or Russian bases in order to be evacuated by Syria by the Russians.
The HTS fighter, Mohammed al -Rabat, witnessed the progress of the Idlib group to Aleppo and the capital of Syria Damascus.
He says they think their work will take “about a year” and best, they will “catch Aleppo in three to six months”. But to their surprise, they entered Aleppo in a few days.
The rapid decline of the regime was created by a chain of events after Hamas's attack on October 7 against Israel.
This attack has led to the escalation of Israeli air strikes against groups supported by IRGC and Iran in Syria and war against another key Iranian ally-Livan militia group Hezbollah, whose leader was killed in air strikes.
This “psychological collapse situation” for Iran and Hezbollah was central to their fall, says 35-year-old fighter Rabit.
But the most important blow came from within: there was a gap between Assad and his allies, he said.
“There was a complete breakdown of confidence and military cooperation between them. The groups associated with IRGC have accused Assad of betrayal and believing that he is giving up his places in Israel.”
As we pass through Khan Sheikhun, we fall on a street painted in the colors of the Iranian flag. This leads to a school building that is used as an Iranian headquarters.
On the wall at the entrance of the toilet slogans: “Down with Israel” and “Down with the United States”.
It was obvious that these plants were also evacuated in the short term. We found documents classified as “highly sensitive”.
65-year-old Abdullah and his family are among the few locals who stayed and lived here with the IRGC groups. He says this life was difficult.
His house is only a few meters from the plant and there are deep trenches with barbed wire between them.
“Movement at night was forbidden,” he says.
His neighbor's home was turned into a military post. “They were sitting there with their weapons aimed at the road, treating all of us as suspects,” he recalls.
Most of the fighters have not even spoken Arabic, he says. “They were Afghans, Iranians, Hezbollah. But we mentioned them as Iranians because Iran controlled them.”
Abdullah Juri's wife says she is happy that the Iranian militias have left, but still remember the “stressful” moment before their withdrawal. She thought they would be trapped in a cross -fire, as the groups supported by Iran strengthen their positions and are preparing to fight, but then “they just disappeared after a few hours.”
“It was an occupation. The Iranian occupation,” says Abo, who, like others, just returned here with his family after 10 years. His house also became a military base.
I watched this anger towards Iran and a softer attitude towards Russia in many conversations with Syrians.
I asked Rabbat, HTS Fighter why it was.
“The Russians dropped bombs from the sky, and they were in their bases while the Iranians and their militia interacted. People felt their presence and many were not happy with it,” he explained.
This feeling is reflected in the policy of the new rulers of Syria to Iran.
The new authorities have banned Iranian citizens, along with the Israelis entering Syria. But there is no such ban on the Russians.
Iran's Embassy, which was stormed by angry protesters after the regime's fall, remains closed.
The reaction of Iranian officials to development in Syria was controversial.
While High Leader Ali Hamenei called on the “Syrian youth” to “resist” those who “brought instability” in Syria, Iran's Foreign Ministry perceives a more balanced look.
It says that the country “supports every government backed by the Syrian people.”
In one of his first interviews, the new Syrian leader Sharaa described his victory over Assad as “the end of the Iranian project”. But he did not rule out that he had “balanced” relationships with Tehran.
For the moment, however, Iran is not welcome in Syria. After years of expanding his military presence, everything Tehran built is now in ruins, both on the battlefield and, it seems, in the eyes of much of the public of Syria.
In the abandoned base, Iran's military expansion has been still in the last day. More tunnels were in the process of building, apparently the beginning of a field hospital. The cement on the walls was still wet and the paint is fresh.
But on the left is evidence of a short battle – a few bullets and a military uniform covered with blood.