Is Iran Helping Syria Crack Down on Protesters?

In its bloody crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, Syria may be getting some secret help from an old friend -- Iran.

Iran has long been suspected of aiding its fellow Shiite Muslims in Bahrain and Yemen during anti-government rallies in those countries. Bahrain has a Shiite majority ruled by a Sunni Muslim king, and Shiites have long complained of discrimination. Yemen and Saudi Arabia also have significant Shiite minorities in certain regions. Iran is suspected of secretly supporting those populations as they rise up against Sunni leaders.

Now U.S. officials have said privately that they believe Iran is meddling in Syria as well -- but to bolster the government side instead. They believe Iran may have been providing its most concrete support yet to the Syrian government during that country's crackdown on protesters, who've been inspired by popular uprisings against authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The help is said to include crowd control gear and technical assistance in blocking protesters' cellphones and Internet signals. U.S. officials acknowledged that they have no proof of direct Iranian involvement in similar crackdowns in Yemen or Bahrain, but said they believe Iranian support in Syria has been more concrete.

"We believe that Iran is materially assisting the Syrian government in its efforts to suppress their own people," an unnamed Obama administration official told The Wall Street Journal.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, U.S. officials seemed to want to send a message to Iran, through press reports, that Washington is well aware of Tehran's work in Syria. "We're keeping an eye on these activities," another U.S. official told the paper.

Syria's ruling family is part of the minority Shiite Alawite sect, and the country has long been considered Iran's strongest Arab ally. For decades, Iran is known to have shipped weapons back and forth across Syria lines to arm Shiite militant groups like Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. In the 1980s, Syria defied its Arab neighbors and took Iran's side in the Iraq-Iran war. Both countries are the most vocal opponents of Israel as well.

"The relationship between Syria and Iran is one of the most enduring relationships between any two states in the Middle East. They have ideological ties in terms of their other foreign policy priorities -- resistance against Israel and involvement in Lebanon and Iraq," James Denselow, a researcher in Mideast security at King's College in London, told AOL News.

"They have a huge number of economic ties in terms of free trade zones in the north, and they have huge cultural ties in terms of various Shiite sites of pilgrimage visited by huge numbers of Iranian tourists," he said.

"So there's every possibility that Iran, at this time of incredible crisis for the Syrian regime, will now be supporting that regime -- Iran's greatest Arab ally," Denselow said. "It cannot consider [the possibility of it] falling."

Iran also has something less concrete to lend to Syria -- previous experience in crushing anti-government rebellion.

After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 election victory, thousands of Iranian citizens took to the streets to protest. The movement, in support of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, came to be known as Iran's "Green Revolution," for Mousavi's campaign color. But it was also sometimes dubbed "the Twitter Revolution" because of the role the micro-blogging website played in delivering news of the Iranian unrest to the outside world.

Ahmadinejad's forces raided the offices of foreign TV networks and blocked their transmissions. Iranian secret police put down the protests in bloody crackdowns that left dozens, and perhaps hundreds, dead. Anti-government rallies have continued sporadically since then and have been met with fierce resistance.

The images of Syria's streets in recent weeks, where hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed, are eerily reminiscent of those two years ago in Iran.

"Iran has of course had its own uprising over the past two years, one that's been put down fairly mercilessly, and therefore has experience in the tools and techniques needed for the kind of crowd suppression that the Syrians will be wanting to conduct," Denselow said.

American officials' wariness of Iranian influence in the Middle East, and their tracking of Tehran's footprints there, is nothing unusual. Iraq is another majority Shiite country that was long ruled by a Sunni Muslim despot. But since Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster, Iran has wielded an ever-larger influence over its fellow Shiites in Iraq -- something the U.S. has long feared. And in recent years, the U.S. and Iran have fought something of a cold war in Iraq, over influence there.

But Denselow said Iran's current assistance to Syria, if proved, could be the most concrete and direct of all.

"Iran is always going to be playing a far more nuanced game than people accuse it of. But Syria is an Iranian ally, and the relationship between the two is all above board -- they trade, there are weapons deals -- that's very well known," Denselow said. "In other places, it's more nefarious."