AFP :
Iran’s supreme leader denied Sunday that militant groups around the region functioned as Tehran’s proxies, warning that if his country chose to “take action”, it would not need them anyway.
The remarks came after a year in which Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza suffered heavy losses in wars with Israel, and two weeks after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who had been a key link in Tehran’s so-called axis of resistance.
