Hezbollah terror group chief admits massive Syria supplies setback after toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime

Hezbollah’s chief 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 has been celebrated across Syria, which has been deeply repressed by the now-ousted president’s family since the 1970s. 

But his allies are furious that their relationships cultivated with the regime were obliterated by the umbrella coalition, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in a lightning offensive that saw Assad’s forces overwhelmed in uner two weeks. 

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, whose group supported Assad during more than a decade of conflict in that country, admitted in a televised address that his terror group ‘lost a military supply line via Syria’.

He added: ‘The resistance must adapt to the circumstances.’

Qassem said he hoped that whoever leads Syria next would assist them, adding: ‘A new regime could come 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 who sought to topple him during the nation’s bitter civil war. 

As late as last week, as Assad’s forces fled their posts, Hezbollah officers were sent to oversee a withdrawal of its own fighters from the country. 

Bashar al-Assad (pictured) was deposed earlier this month by an umbrella coalition of militias

People walk past an Iranian domestically-built missile as they visit National Aerospace Park of the Revolutionary Guard, just outside Tehran in Iran, on November 15 this year

The terror group maintained a supply line through Syria from Iran, which passed weapons ranging from missiles to heavily subsidised fuel products for Hezbollah to use. 

Analysts have said that while Assad’s fall would be a major setback for Hezbollah, this was not necessarily the end for Iran’s support of 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 help of pro-Iran militias in the country, before going through Central Syria, where few militias have stakes their claims, and then into Lebanon. 

He added that Iran could still send maritime support to Syria’s Mediterranean coast as well. 

Despite this, other Arab nations, along with the US, the EU and Turkey, issued a joint statement calling for a peaceful transition to democracy, as well as the safe and secure destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles used by Assad against his own people. 

It also expressed full support for Syria’s territorial integrity.

A separate statement issued by 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 ruined building on December 14 in Jobar, Syria

Children wave Syrian independence-era flag in the town of al-Dana, near Sarmada, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on December 13

This aerial view shows a destroyed building in Maaret al-Numan, in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province, on December 14

That statement also condemned Israel’s incursion into the buffer zone with Syria and adjacent sites over the past week as a ‘heinous occupation’ and demands the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

In a sign of warming relations to the transitional government, Turkey reopened its embassy in Syria on Saturday, becoming the first country to do so since the end of Bashar Assad’s rule last weekend.

The Syrian insurgents who overthrew Assad had received vital help from Turkey.

The Turkish flag was raised above the compound in Damascus for the first time since diplomatic ties were cut in 2012. The embassy suspended operations 12 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 as they sought to normalise relations.