Iran security chief says ‘new resistance’ against Israel to emerge in Syria

Israeli soldiers prepare to be deployed to the Gaza Strip near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian said a new group would emerge in Syria to fight Israel following the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, state media reported.

“With the occupation of Syrian territories by the Zionist regime, a new resistance has been born that will manifest itself in the years to come,” said Ahmadian, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, IRNA news agency reported late Monday.

In a meeting with Oman’s foreign minister, Ahmadian insisted that Iran’s anti-Israel axis of resistance was “not weakened” after the December 8 fall of Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.

Assad fled Syria after rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the capital Damascus after a lightning offensive.

Since his fall, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military facilities since Assad’s fall, saying it aimed to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.

Israeli troops also occupied strategic positions in a UN-patrolled buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights which it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The move was described by UN chief Antonio Guterres as a breach of the 1974 armistice between the two countries.

Iran has since condemned Israel’s seizure of land in Syria.

Tehran’s allies in the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have suffered severe blows in conflicts with Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023.

During Monday’s meeting, Ahmadian maintained that Iran has “not changed” its nuclear doctrine against pursuing atomic weapons, IRNA reported.

Last month Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that frustration in Tehran over unmet commitments, such as lifting sanctions, was fuelling debate over whether the country should alter its nuclear policy.

Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and has consistently denied any ambition of developing weapons capability.