By Ahed Fadel

ABU DHABI — Tehran this week announced that it will open a new university in Syria, the Iran-based Tarbiat Modares University, as an addition to the several branches of universities and secondary schools they already established across the country.

In what many considered as a strategy by Tehran to promote their ideological and political agendas as well as gain heavy military involvement within the country, Iran has set up multiple educational facilities in Syria.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Tarbiat Modares will be the fifth Iran-based university to be established in Syria, including the Islamic Azad University and the College of Islamic Schools.

The Assad-backed news agency SANA did not elaborate on the agreement between the Bashar Al-Assad regime and Tehran to open more Iranian universities in Syria.

However, SANA reported that the Chairman of Iran-Syria Parliamentary Friendship Group Hussein Ragheb Al-Hussein proposed the establishment of a “center of studies” that combined the Syrian Ministry of Education and the Iranian Ministry of Science and Technology.

Experts note that Iran has strategically set up universities and schools across Syria as a means to spread its ideology onto the new generations through different curricula. With the support of the Assad regime, Iran was able to set up five large universities that have the capability to accommodate a large number of students who they can then enforce their ideologies onto. — Al Arabiya English