Following the collapse of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was their ally, Iranian forces withdrew mainly from Syria at the end of last December (2024), in a move that was a strong strategic blow to Tehran that was little talked about in the media.

With the collapse of the Assad regime, thousands of Iranian-backed militia fighters were still in the country, especially in eastern Syria, as well as in Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere.

However, most of those Iranian forces, including IRGC officers, along with Afghan, Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian fighters, quickly fled, towards the border town of Al-Qaim on the Iraqi side, according to what has now been revealed.

They also added that some Iranians stationed in Damascus flew to Tehran, while Hezbollah fighters in the west of the country fled overland to Lebanon, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What about Iran's military assets?

Western diplomats have revealed that when thousands of Iranian military personnel and their allies fled the country, they were forced to leave behind huge amounts of military equipment and weapons that were later blown up by Israel, or seized by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other militias affiliated with it.

Asked whether the Iranians had completely left Syria, Barbara Leaf, the top Middle East diplomat, said on Monday: “To a large extent, yes ... that is unusual.” The US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs added that Syria had now become a hostile zone for Iran.

Iranian authorities spent billions of dollars and sent thousands of military personnel and fighters to Syria after 2011, to support Assad and maintain an important land bridge for transferring weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

NEWSRAEL: Many in Syria blame the prolonging of the Syrian civil war and its hundreds of thousands of deaths on the Iranian support Assad received, and the Sunni hatred for Iran is way beyond the regular Sunni-Shiite hatred. All talk from Tehran about "reconciliation" is nothing more than talk.