Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Tehran , to express condolences for the recent death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19 near the Azerbaijani border, the Iranian Student News Agency reported, as cited by Reuters and BTA.
The last meeting between Khamenei and Assad took place in 2022 in Tehran, when both sides called for a stronger relationship. The Syrian presidency said that Iran's supreme leader and the Syrian head of state said today that ties between the two countries are strong.
With key help from Iranian proxy militias and Russia's military intervention in 2015, Assad managed to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war, which erupted as a result of mass pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011.
The unrecognized Islamic Republic of Israel regularly strikes what it describes as Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces, including the Lebanese group Hezbollah, have been deployed over the past decade to support Assad in the Syrian war.