BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that the Lebanese armed group had lost its supply route through Syria, in his first comments since President Bashar al-Assad was ousted nearly a week ago in a sweeping opposition offensive.
Under Assad, Iran-backed Hezbollah used Syria to bring weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. But on December 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that road, and two days later Islamist rebels seized the capital, Damascus.
Qassem said in a televised speech on Saturday, without mentioning Assad by name: “Yes, Hezbollah has lost the military supply route through Syria at this stage, but this loss is a detail in the work of the resistance.”
He added, “A new regime may come and this road will return to normal, and we can look for other ways.”
Hezbollah began intervening in Syria in 2013 to help Assad fight the rebels who were seeking to overthrow him at the time. Last week, as opposition fighters approached Damascus, the group sent supervisory officers to supervise the withdrawal of its fighters from there.
More than 50 years of Assad family rule has now been replaced by an interim transitional government set up by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that has led the opposition offensive.
Qassem said Hezbollah “cannot judge these new forces until they stabilize” and “take clear positions,” but he expressed hope that the Lebanese and Syrian peoples and governments could continue cooperation.
Qassem said, “We also hope that this new ruling party will consider Israel an enemy and will not normalize relations with it. These are the headlines that will affect the nature of the relationship between us and Syria.”
Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire across Lebanon's southern border for nearly a year in hostilities sparked by the Gaza War, before Israel launched an attack in September, killing most of Hezbollah's senior leaders.
