Iran's supreme leader predicts new resistance in Syria

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.

"We expect a new group to form," Khamenei said at a religious ceremony in Tehran.

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.

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.

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.

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.