This handout picture released by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on December 22, 2024, shows him greeting visitors as he makes a speech in Tehran. (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denies that terror and rebel groups around the region function 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 — sparked by attacks by those two terror groups — 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.
Another spoke of that axis, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, have been targeted by the United States, Britain and Israel over their attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes and on Israel.
“The Islamic Republic does not have a proxy force. Yemen fights because it has faith. Hezbollah fights because the power of faith draws it into the field. Hamas and [the Islamic] Jihad fight because their beliefs compel them to do so. They do not act as our proxy,” Khamenei tells a group of visitors in Tehran.
“[The Americans] keep saying that the Islamic Republic has lost its proxy forces in the region! This is another mistake,” he says, adding: “If one day we want to take action, we do not need a proxy force.”
The son of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Mohammad Mahdi Nasrallah, is among those in attendance for the speech.
This handout picture released by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shows the son of slain Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, Mohammad Mahdi Nasrallah (C), attending a speech by Khamenei in Tehran on December 22, 2024 (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
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