The top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said he expected the Syrian army to soon recapture rebel-held Idlib province as well as eastern Syria, an area where U.S.-backed fighters hold swaths of territory.
Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Iranian official, Ali Akbar Velayati, was speaking in Aleppo, from which the Syrian army drove rebels after a siege last year with help from Tehran.
The military alliance backing Assad, which also includes Russia and Shiite fighters, has this year focused on the war in central and eastern Syria against Daesh (ISIS).
But Damascus is now setting its sights on territory held by Kurdish-led forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition that has also been fighting Daesh in northern and eastern Syria.
“Soon we will see eastern Syria cleared, and then the Idlib area in west,” said Velayati, the top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in comments reported by the Iranian Mehr news agency.
He also hailed the success of Iranian allies across the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in remarks likely to infuriate Tehran’s main regional foe Saudi Arabia, lauding a “resistance line” from Tehran to Beirut.
Assad’s forces have also made some advances into rebel-held areas in northwest Syria adjacent to Idlib, a region that represents the insurgents’ biggest remaining stronghold.
Visiting Aleppo, Velayati was quoted by a military news outlet run by Hezbollah as saying Tehran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war had averted wider violence.
“The resistance line starts from Tehran and passes through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut to reach Palestine,” he was quoted as telling a group of Shiite militia volunteers.
Iran’s role, first by providing military advisers and then by training and arming Shiite fighters in support of Assad, has not only helped shape the Syrian conflict, but has strengthened Tehran’s own hand across the region.
For the first time, Iran’s revolutionary theocracy is exerting decisive authority in an arc of influence that Sunni Arab powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been warning about for years.
The Hezbollah news outlet said the fighters Velayati was addressing had come to defend the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus, a magnet for thousands of Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militia recruits who go there before being assigned to front lines to fight Sunni rebel groups opposed to Assad.
Almost every Shiite militiaman bears insignia on his combat fatigues with the words “For your sake, Sayeda Zeinab.”
Velayati’s visit was the second by a senior Iranian official to the war-torn country in nearly two weeks, showing how Tehran is openly raising its support for the Syrian government.
Iran’s military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri paid a rare visit to Syria last month in which he warned Israel against breaching Syrian air space and territory a day before he visited a front line position near Aleppo.
Saudi Arabia, its Arab allies and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to expand its influence in the Arab world with the goal of carving out a land route through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean.
The Syrian opposition also say Shiite Iran’s military presence in the country stokes sectarian conflict and blames its militias for demographic changes that have uprooted Sunnis.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on November 09, 2017, on page 9.
Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Iranian official, Ali Akbar Velayati, was speaking in Aleppo, from which the Syrian army drove rebels after a siege last year with help from Tehran.
The military alliance backing Assad, which also includes Russia and Shiite fighters, has this year focused on the war in central and eastern Syria against Daesh (ISIS).
But Damascus is now setting its sights on territory held by Kurdish-led forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition that has also been fighting Daesh in northern and eastern Syria.
“Soon we will see eastern Syria cleared, and then the Idlib area in west,” said Velayati, the top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in comments reported by the Iranian Mehr news agency.
He also hailed the success of Iranian allies across the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in remarks likely to infuriate Tehran’s main regional foe Saudi Arabia, lauding a “resistance line” from Tehran to Beirut.
Assad’s forces have also made some advances into rebel-held areas in northwest Syria adjacent to Idlib, a region that represents the insurgents’ biggest remaining stronghold.
Visiting Aleppo, Velayati was quoted by a military news outlet run by Hezbollah as saying Tehran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war had averted wider violence.
“The resistance line starts from Tehran and passes through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut to reach Palestine,” he was quoted as telling a group of Shiite militia volunteers.
Iran’s role, first by providing military advisers and then by training and arming Shiite fighters in support of Assad, has not only helped shape the Syrian conflict, but has strengthened Tehran’s own hand across the region.
For the first time, Iran’s revolutionary theocracy is exerting decisive authority in an arc of influence that Sunni Arab powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been warning about for years.
The Hezbollah news outlet said the fighters Velayati was addressing had come to defend the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus, a magnet for thousands of Iraqi and Afghan Shiite militia recruits who go there before being assigned to front lines to fight Sunni rebel groups opposed to Assad.
Almost every Shiite militiaman bears insignia on his combat fatigues with the words “For your sake, Sayeda Zeinab.”
Velayati’s visit was the second by a senior Iranian official to the war-torn country in nearly two weeks, showing how Tehran is openly raising its support for the Syrian government.
Iran’s military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri paid a rare visit to Syria last month in which he warned Israel against breaching Syrian air space and territory a day before he visited a front line position near Aleppo.
Saudi Arabia, its Arab allies and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to expand its influence in the Arab world with the goal of carving out a land route through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean.
The Syrian opposition also say Shiite Iran’s military presence in the country stokes sectarian conflict and blames its militias for demographic changes that have uprooted Sunnis.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on November 09, 2017, on page 9.
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