The head of Hezbollah has admitted that the terror group has lost a key military supply line in the wake of the fall of murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Assad’s fall on December 8 is being celebrated across Syria, which has been deeply oppressed by the now deposed presidential family since the 1970s.
But his allies are furious that their relations with the regime were destroyed by the umbrella coalition, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in a lightning offensive that overwhelmed Assad’s forces in less than two weeks.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, whose group supported Assad during more than a decade of conflict in that country, admitted in a televised speech that his terror group “lost a military supply line through Syria.”
He added: “The resistance must adapt to the circumstances.”
Qassem said he hoped whoever leads Syria next would help them, adding: “A new regime could come in and this route could return to normal, and we could look for other ways.”
Hezbollah began intervention work in Syria in 2013 to help fight opposition forces trying to overthrow him during the country’s bitter civil war.
Just last week, as Assad’s forces fled their posts, Hezbollah officers were sent to oversee the withdrawal of its own fighters from the country.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem (pictured) admitted in a televised speech that his terror group ‘lost a military supply line through Syria’
Bashar al-Assad (photo) was deposed earlier this month by an umbrella coalition of militias
People walk past an Iranian domestically built rocket as they visit the Revolutionary Guards National Aerospace Park outside Tehran, Iran, on November 15 this year.
The terror group maintained a supply line through Syria from Iran, which passed on weapons ranging from missiles to heavily subsidized fuel products for Hezbollah to use.
Analysts have said that while Assad’s fall would be a major setback for Hezbollah, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iranian support for the terror group.
Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute, wrote in a blog post that Iran could still send support to Hezbollah through Iraq with the help of pro-Iranian militias in the country, before passing through central Syria, where few militias have their claims at stake. and then to Lebanon.
He added that Iran could also still send maritime support to Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
Despite this, other Arab countries, along with the US, EU and Turkey, issued a joint statement calling for a peaceful transition to democracy, as well as the safe destruction of the stockpiles of chemical weapons that Assad is using against his own people.
He also expressed his full support for the territorial integrity of Syria.
A separate statement from Arab foreign ministers called for UN-supervised elections based on a new constitution approved by Syrians.
A man leans through the window frame of a destroyed building on December 14 in Jobar, Syria
Children waving the Syrian independence-era flag in the town of al-Dana, near Sarmada, in Syria’s northern Idlib province on December 13
This aerial photo shows a destroyed building in Maaret al-Numan, in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, on December 14
The statement also condemned Israel’s incursion into the buffer zone with Syria and neighboring areas over the past week as a “heinous occupation” and demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
In a sign of warming relations with the transitional government, Turkey reopened its embassy in Syria on Saturday. This makes Turkey the first country to do this since the end of Bashar Assad’s rule last weekend.
The Syrian rebels who overthrew Assad had received vital assistance from Turkey.
The Turkish flag was raised above the complex in Damascus for the first time since diplomatic ties were severed in 2012. The embassy suspended its activities twelve years ago due to insecurity during the Syrian civil war.
Several countries maintained diplomatic ties with Assad’s government during the 13-year conflict, while others reopened their diplomatic missions in recent years in an effort to normalize relations.