Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating the toppling of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while also blaming a “neighbouring” country of Syria.

“There should be no doubt that what happened in Syria was the result of a joint American-Zionist plot,” said Khamenei, addressing the fall of al-Assad for the first time in a speech delivered in Tehran on Wednesday.

Blow to ‘axis of resistance’

Syrian rebels’ lightning push to the capital, Damascus, from their strongholds in the northwest ended the decades-long rule of al-Assad’s family.

Iran and Russia had propped up al-Assad’s rule after the eruption of war in 2011 with military and political support, as well as fighters and airpower.

On Tuesday, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, said no Iranian forces remained in Syria.

Al-Assad had long played a strategic role in the Iran-led “axis of resistance” against US and Israeli influence in the region, which includes armed groups.

Speaking hours after al-Assad fled Syria on Sunday, US President Joe Biden claimed the end of al-Assad’s rule was partly due to US backing for Israel’s war on Gaza and its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as support for groups in Syria and Iraq that weakened Iran.

He also pointed to US support for Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion, which siphoned resources from Moscow, and said US forces would remain in northeast Syria.

Israel, meanwhile, has carried out hundreds of air attacks across Syria since the overthrowing of al-Assad, hitting key military sites, while its troops have moved into a demilitarised zone inside Syria, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus.

But Khamenei on Wednesday said events in Syria would not diminish Iran’s power, dismissing suggestions that the country would be weakened as “ignorant” and arguing that resistance would grow.