The government of Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, blamed the governments of Israel and America for the surprise attack by al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on the city of Aleppo, Syria, this weekend.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed on Monday that Israel has a “history” and “relation” to HTS – contradicting the militia’s long history of explicitly jihadist Islamist ideology and its key role in Syria of organizing disparate Sunni jihadist groups into a functional force to challenge dictator Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite Shiite leader. HTS, and its previous iteration the al-Nusra Front, was a major player in the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011 before the war stalled around 2017.
Since then, Syria has experienced a state of fractured governance in which the Assad regime is the most powerful entity but does not fully control the country. HTS controls some swathes of Syria, while in the north the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) control significant percentages of the country and have struggled to repel invasions by the Turkish military throughout the past half-decade.
The years-long lull in the war concluded dramatically on Thursday when HTS jihadists invaded Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, and appeared to take it over with minimal resistance from the Syrian military. After years of the Syrian civil war falling out of international headlines and a repressive regime in Damascus, few global journalistic outlets are active in the country and little reliable information is available from on-the-ground sources, though both the Assad regime and the jihadists appear to agree that major fighting has erupted in and around Aleppo.
As of this weekend, the Assad regime’s top ally Russia launched airstrikes targeting HTS terrorists that anti-Assad entities on the ground such as the White Helmets claim have killed dozens of people. Russia has confirmed airstrikes in support of Assad but claims the strikes have only killed terrorists.
No reports indicate any American or Israeli involvement in the developments in Aleppo. Despite this, Tehran rapidly moved to blame both countries for the resurgence of the al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists in Syria.
“The terrorist groups’ history and their relation to the Zionist regime [Israel] take us to the conclusion that their resurgence has been no accident,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, according to a report by Iranian state media outlet PressTV. PressTV did not report that Baghaei offered any alleged evidence of a link between HTS and the government of Israel. He used as a justification for condemning Israel the fact that Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iranian proxy terrorist organization Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon last week, insisting the timing was “no accident” but not clarifying the alleged connection.
“All of the region’s Muslim countries and other nations should take this into account that the recent developments [in Syria] have been the work of the common enemy of security and instability, namely the Zionist regime,” he suggested.
Baghaei also condemned the United States for continued military operations against the Islamic State in Syria. Iran has consistently claimed, without evidence, that the Islamic State is an American vehicle to destabilize the Middle East, but Baghaei complained that the United States maintains operations against the jihadist terror group.
“The American military presence in Syria amounts to violation of the Arab country’s clear principles and laws, and continuation of terrorists’ presence there is down to the United States’ presence in the country,” he protested. “If the goal sought by the American military presence in Syria is fighting [the Takfiri terrorist group] Daesh, what is the group [still] doing there?”
Iran also occupies part of Syria, but justifies it by insisting that the Iranians are in the country to defend Assad.
“Our advisors continue to maintain a presence there,” Baghaei confirmed. “Therefore, Iran’s presence in Syria is not a new development. It has been established there based on Syria’s request and opinion, and continues to last.”
A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its in-house terrorist operation, went further than the Foreign Ministry, insisting that HTS is a “mercenary” entity for America and Israel.
“They (the terrorists operating in Syria) are not opposition fighters, but rather, mercenaries of the Zionist regime (Israel) and the United States as well as regrouped remnants of Daesh [the Islamic State] and other Takfiri [infidel, typically meaning Sunni when used by Iran] outfits,” IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini said on Monday. He speculated that the objective of the Aleppo assault was not to overthrow Assad but to weaken Iran’s sprawling Middle East terror network.
“The Zionist regime believes it can make up for its defeats against the Lebanese Hezbollah and resistance forces in Gaza through the engagement of the Resistance Front in Syria,” he continued, referring to the ceasefire in Lebanon as a “defeat.” Naeini threatened a “regret-inducing” attack on Israel in response to the Aleppo situation.
Separately, former IRGC commander Major General Mohsen Rezaei, who now serves on Iran’s powerful Expediency Council, told Al Jazeera that the Iranian government “consider[s] the occupation of Aleppo the result of provocation by Israel and the United States.”
“This action is an extension of the war on Lebanon and Gaza to Syria, and [thus] we support Syria, and its government and army,” he added, again, offering no evidence to support any relationship between HTS and Israel or America.
