Assad’s fall in Syria will not weaken Iran, says Khamenei

(Keystone-ATS) “To imagine that when the resistance is weakened, Islamic Iran is also weakened, is to not know the meaning of resistance” and “ignorance,” Ali Khamenei said. This is his first comment since the takeover on Sunday by a coalition of rebels and Islamists.

“There is no doubt that what happened in Syria is the result of a conspiracy by the United States and (Israel),” assured Mr. Khamenei, who has the final word on all strategic decisions. in Iran. “A government neighboring Syria played an obvious role in this affair,” he added, in a jab that seemed aimed at Turkey.

The fall of the Assad family, whose father Hafez then son Bachar ruled Syria with an iron fist for half a century, is a hard blow for Iran which invested politically, financially and militarily in the country, but now sees its interests threatened.

Syria has for decades been a close ally of Tehran and the keystone of the land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, the most formidable member of its anti-Israeli “axis of resistance”, through which weapons and the fighters could transit.

The radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), spearhead of the offensive which brought down Bashar al-Assad, was supported by Turkey. HTS, a former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria (Al-Nusra), an organization with which it broke in 2016, is still classified as “terrorist” by Western chancelleries.