Assad’s fall in Syria will not weaken ‘strong and powerful’ Iran: Khamenei

Assad has long played a strategic role in Iran’s anti-Israel ‘axis of resistance’, especially in supplying weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon

Reading Time:2 minutes

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:46pm, 11 Dec 2024Updated: 8:57pm, 11 Dec 2024

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the weakening of the anti-Israel “resistance” after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria would not diminish Tehran’s power.

Some, “unaware of the meaning of resistance, imagine that when the resistance becomes weak, Islamic Iran will also become weak … Iran is strong and powerful and will become even more powerful”, Khamenei said in his first speech after Assad’s fall.

Syrian rebels’ lightning push to Damascus from their strongholds in the northwest ended the decades-long rule of Assad’s family, once an ally of Tehran.

Assad had long played a strategic role in Iran’s anti-Israel “axis of resistance”, particularly in facilitating the supply of weapons to Tehran’s ally Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

03:19

‘A dream happened’: Syrians abroad react to the end of Assad regime

The axis of resistance includes Hezbollah, as well as Hamas in Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen and smaller Shia militia groups in Iraq.