Iranian defence minister meets Assad amid mounting Israeli attacks on Tehran's allies in Syria

Azizi Nasirzadeh is the second senior Iranian official to head to Damascus since last week

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad received Iran's Minister of Defence Brigadier General Azizi Nasirzadeh in Damascus on Sunday. AFP

Iranian Defence Minister Azizi Nasirzadeh on Sunday held security discussions with Syria's President Bashar Al Assad in Damascus, state media reported, amid mounting Israeli attacks on Syrian security forces and Tehran-allied militias in the country.

He is the second senior Iranian official to visit Syria in as many weeks. On Thursday, the same day Israel bombed what it described as Palestinian Islamic Jihad compounds in Damascus, Ali Larijani, senior adviser Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met Mr Al Assad. No details were disclosed about the meeting.

The PIJ is among the militant groups closest to Iran in the Middle East and the attack killed 15 people, Syrian state media reported.

Mr Al Assad and Mr Nasirzadeh spoke about “issues related to defence and security in the region, and bolstering co-operation between the two countries,” the official Syrian news agency Sana said.

Iranian state media reported shortly before his arrival on Saturday that Mr Nasirzadeh, accompanied by high-level officials, would “explore ways to enhance defence and security co-operation” during the visit.

It quoted Mr Nasirzadeh as saying that Syria plays “a strategic role in Iran’s foreign policy”, and that the two countries support each other in “critical” times.

The alliance is critical to the strategic position of Hezbollah, Iran's most powerful regional ally, in the continuing war with Israel. Since the outbreak of the 2011 revolt against the Assad government, Iran has poured militia proxies into Syria and built corridors of control across the country. These areas have acted as supply lines for Hezbollah, which attacked northern Israel a day after the Gaza war started on October 7, last year.

In the wake of the success of an Israeli campaign to weaken the militant group in the second half of this year, Israeli planes struck in September a compound near Damascus linked to Mr Al Assad’s brother, Brig Gen Maher Al Assad, indicating Israel could be willing to attack senior Syrian military officials. Brig Gen Maher heads the Fourth Mechanised Division, the best-trained and equipped part of the army, which is also seen as the closest unit to Iran.

Elite Syrian army and intelligence units, which underpin the ruling system, have also come under attack by Israel in the past several months. This has put pressure on the alliance between Damascus and Tehran, although the Syrian government has tried to distance itself from attacks emanating from Syria by Iran's militia allies on Israeli targets.

In recent weeks, the capital Damascus has been struck by Israel as it escalated its campaign against Hezbollah. A series of operations killed many of the Lebanese group's leadership, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as operational commanders on the ground, forcing the group to rely more on Syria to maintain its command structure, security experts say.

A member of the Syrian opposition, who is based in Jordan and tracks Iranian activities in Syria, said that since the start of the Gaza war, areas in the Iranian zone of control in Syria have been increasingly serving as “a kitchen for Iran: a weapons laboratory and development centre”, as well as the main routes for supplying weapons to Hezbollah.

Allied Iran-backed militias in Iraq, who are crucial to maintaining its weapons supply from the east, have also come under increased military pressure, after the recent US air raids on areas near the border with Iraq in eastern Syria.