Iran to ‘firmly support’ damascus

AFP :

Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi met President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus Sunday to deliver a message of support, state media said, after a lightning rebel advance cost the government control of Syria’s second city Aleppo.
Tehran has been a staunch ally of Assad during the civil war that broke out in 2011. Iran maintains it does not have combat troops in Syria, only officers who provide military advice and training.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has for years fought on the side of the Syrian government. Araghchi and Assad “discussed bilateral relations and regional developments”, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported, without providing further details.
A statement from the Syrian presidency said Assad emphasised “the importance of the support of allies and friends in confronting foreign-backed terrorist attacks”. Before leaving for Damascus, Araghchi said Tehran would “firmly support the Syrian government and army”, IRNA reported earlier. Islamist-led rebels on Saturday seized most of Aleppo, along with its airport and dozens of nearby towns, the war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. And as of Sunday, the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied factions controlled “Aleppo city, except the neighbourhoods controlled by the Kurdish forces”, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the monitor, told AFP.