The leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that led the assault that ultimately toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has reached an agreement with other rebel leaders in its coalition to dissolve their factions and merge them under the Defense Ministry,

In the aftermath, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemned Assad’s fall as a foreign-orchestrated conspiracy, a framing that reflects Tehran’s efforts to preserve its image as a resilient regional power.

TEHRAN: Iran affirmed its support for Syria’s sovereignty on Monday, and said the country should not become “a haven for terrorism” after the fall of president Bashar Al Assad, a long-time Tehran ally.

Iran is still grappling with the fallout from the fall of the Assad regime. It invested heavily in Assad’s rule in Damascus and likely expected that it would continue for many years. However, Assad fell from power on December 8.

Assad’s ouster has raised urgent questions about the 2,000 troops who serve as a bulwark against ISIS and Iran.

This article examines the implications of Turkey's rise as the dominant foreign power in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government, focusing on the regional rivalry with Iran and the uncertain future of the Kurds.

The ascendance of Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria should be viewed with great caution by Western powers, but the Assad regime’s collapse disables a critical node in Iran’s regional proxy network, a counterterrorism expert explains.

Tehran’s increasingly vulnerable position in the region has energized opposition activists and spurred hardliners to endorse the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

When Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite minority member, seized control of the Ba'ath Party in Syria in 1970, he faced a significant backlash. The Syrian Constitution stipulated that only Muslims could hold the presidency, and the Alawites were deemed non-Muslim by many Sunni groups.

Assad, Iran has started to distance itself from their longtime alliance, instead stressing the history of friendship between the two countries.Rebels advanced from their stronghold in the northwestern city of Idlib to the capital Damascus in less than two weeks,

Iran affirmed its support for Syria's sovereignty on Monday, and said the country should not become "a haven for terrorism" after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.