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Iran has started to evacuate its military personnel and commanders from Syria on Friday, The New York Times reported.

Regional sources and three Iranian officials told the publication that top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, were among those evacuated to neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon.

Other evacuees include Guards personnel, Iranian diplomatic staff and their families, Iranian civilians, and embassy staff. Some will be leaving by plane for Iran’s capital, Tehran, while others will be going via land routes to Lebanon, Iraq, and the Syrian port of Latakia.

Officials say they began to leave Syria on Friday morning and were ordered at the Iranian Embassy in Syria’s capital, Damascus, and the bases of the Guards.

The evacuations suggested Iran’s lack of ability to help Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad during a rebel offensive that has seen the regime lose control of major cities and huge swathes of territory, including Aleppo and Hama, as well as Daraa, Suwayda and Deir al-Zour

Iran has long been a supporter of the Syrian regime, aiding it throughout the Syrian conflict which began in 2011 following the regime's brutal suppression of pro-democracy protest.

Iran has used Syria as a key route to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, as the offensive takes place, experts suggest Iran cannot militarily support the regime much longer.

Tehran sent militia fighters to defend the regime in 2011, and some of its forces had remained in military bases in Syria. However, they are also being transferred to the capital Damascus and the port of Latakia.

Two top generals of Iran’s Quds forces, who were deployed to advise Assad’s forces, had also fled to Iraq as rebel groups took control over parts of Homs province and Der az-Zour on Friday.

Iranian analyst Mehdi Rahmati told the New York Times that “Iran has realised that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table”.

Rahmati also said the country “cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight”.

The rebels have now taken the southern cities of Daraa and Suweida as the Syrian regime has withdrawn from eastern Syria.