Syria's sovereignty and integrity should be maintained, and its future should be decided by Syrian people without "destructive" foreign interference, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday.

Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that led the assault that ultimately toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has reached an agreement with other rebel leaders in its coalition to dissolve their factions and merge them under the Defense Ministry,

In the aftermath, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemned Assad’s fall as a foreign-orchestrated conspiracy, a framing that reflects Tehran’s efforts to preserve its image as a resilient regional power.

Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday that Iran and Syria are engaged in diplomatic consultations on the reopening of their embassies in Damascus and Tehran.

Assad’s ouster has raised urgent questions about the 2,000 troops who serve as a bulwark against ISIS and Iran.

Tehran’s increasingly vulnerable position in the region has energized opposition activists and spurred hardliners to endorse the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

This article examines the implications of Turkey's rise as the dominant foreign power in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government, focusing on the regional rivalry with Iran and the uncertain future of the Kurds.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

Iran affirmed its support for Syria's sovereignty on Monday, and said the country should not become "a haven for terrorism" after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.

An alliance forged through the mutual dislike of Saddam Hussein was for decades the only fixed point in a turbulent region

When Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite minority member, seized control of the Ba'ath Party in Syria in 1970, he faced a significant backlash. The Syrian Constitution stipulated that only Muslims could hold the presidency, and the Alawites were deemed non-Muslim by many Sunni groups.

Each of these operations was highly significant, but the fact they all occurred within a mere three months is without precedent in a region that endured decades of war.