Iran is rushing troops and weapons to Syria to defend the remaining strongholds of the Assad regime amid mounting signs that Damascus is preparing for the de facto partition of the country.

Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s powerful spy chief, visited Latakia, the ancestral heartland of President Assad’s Alawite minority, last month to assess the situation after rebels advanced on the border with the neighbouring Idlib province.

Iranian military sources said that General Soleimani, the commander of the elite al-Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was furious at the despondency he encountered among the Syrian military’s top brass.

“Why are your heads down?” he was reported to have demanded. “The people of Syria have been paying their taxes to pay your wages for precisely such a day,