“If Syria had not provided logistical support for Hezbollah, Hezbollah and Hamas would have failed to achieve victory in [Israel’s] 33-day and 22-day war,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, told Mehr news agency on Saturday.
The Israeli regime waged a 22-day war on the densely populated Gaza Strip in 2008, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead including at least 300 children.
The Gaza war saw Hamas preventing Tel Aviv from materializing its stated aim of destroying the Palestinian resistance movement.
Forces with the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah also defended Lebanon against Israeli invaders during the 33-Day war in 2006 and Tel Aviv was compelled to withdraw its troops without having achieved any of its objectives.
Velayati further said that Syria plays a “very fundamental and key” role in promoting resistance in the region.
He emphasized that Western countries and reactionary regional states, which oppose resistance against the Zionists, attacked the “golden resistance chain” by waging an war on Syria.
The senior Iranian official reaffirmed the country’s foreign policy on support for Palestine, the Lebanese resistance, Syria and a popular government in Iraq.
“The maintenance of the resistance chain is the objective,” Velayati pointed out.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government has said that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that a very large number of the militants operating in the country are foreign nationals.
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Publish Date: 26 January 2013 - 20:12
A senior Iranian official has praised Syria’s logistic support for Lebanon's resistance group Hezbollah during the Israeli regime’s 33-day war, saying an attack on Syria is regarded as a strike against Iran and its allies.