FSA rebels: We would have won if not for Iran Iranian soldiers have been training Syrian militias since 2012 [Atta Kenare/AFP Photo] In the summer of 2012, the leading commanders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were confident that momentum was with them. A bomb blast deep inside central Damascus had just taken out four senior commanders of the Syrian army, including the country's defence minister, Dawoud Rajiha, and his deputy, Dawoud Rajiha, who was also President  Bashar al-Assad 's brother-in-law. The explosion, believed to have been carried out by an insider sympathetic to the opposition cause, gave hope to rebels that it was only a matter of time before Assad met a similar fate. WATCH 25:02 What is Iran's endgame in Syria? That hope was bolstered by successes on the battlefield, as ragtag groups of fighters coalesced into more effective armed groups, large swaths of the country started to come into rebel control.  Fateh Hassoun, wh...