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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei anticipates a renewed resistance struggle by Syrians against the country’s new leadership structures following the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
“We expect a new [resistance] group to form,” Khamenei said at a religious ceremony in Tehran.<\/p>\n
The Syrian youth in particular would resist those who had repeatedly made their country and their future insecure, the cleric said according to the ISNA news agency.<\/p>\n
The fall of Syria’s long-time ruler was a severe blow for Iran, which has seen its entire Middle East policy weakened as a result.<\/p>\n
Al-Assad was considered a strategically important ally in Iran’s self-proclaimed “axis of resistance” against its arch-enemy Israel. Syria also served as a corridor for Iranian arms deliveries to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The country supported al-Assad generously both financially and militarily and branded the Syrian Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group – which led the regime overthrow – as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n