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‘They Are Not Under Our Command:’ Iranian Foreign Minister Denies Control Over Proxy Terrorist Groups
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday flatly denied that the Tehran regime controls proxy terrorist groups across the Middle East, insisting that such groups act on their own volition when targeting US and Israeli interests.
Commenting on recent US airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that there are “groups today in Iraq and Syria that act against the US upon their own decision. They do not get our permission. They are not under Iran’s command. We have clearly said that Iran does not have any proxy group or organization in the region.”
Interviewed by the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese broadcaster Al Mayadeen, Amir-Abdollahian added that Iran had told “the US that if you want restraint on the part of Iran, Hezbollah, and other sides … you should practically seek to stop the war [in Gaza] and not take sides with the Zionist occupation and participate in its crimes.” He also said that Iran was not seeking an expansion of the conflict, but that such an outcome was likely if the fighting in Gaza intensified.
Amir-Abdollahian’s claims fly in the face of US intelligence reports regarding the nature of Iran’s long-standing support for Islamist groups around the region. A State Department analysis in 2020 noted that Iran provides Hezbollah in Lebanon with $700 million annually, while terrorist groups in Gaza such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have received $100 million annually.
A Sept. 2023 report from the Wilson Center, a US think tank, noted that the US sanctioned 11 Iranian-backed groups in five countries between 1995 and 2022. Additionally, three US presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – issued executive orders that empowered them to sanction Iranian proxies during their terms in office.
In the same interview, Amir-Abdollahian revived the 2014 proposal of Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for a referendum on governance in “Palestine” that would follow the overthrow of the “Zionist regime” and would allow all residents to vote.
However, the foreign minister continued, “the Israeli regime showed in the last 76 days that it is the same usurping genocidal criminal entity. Democratic gestures and talk of democracy for the Israeli regime is a bitter irony of our history.”
The post ‘They Are Not Under Our Command:’ Iranian Foreign Minister Denies Control Over Proxy Terrorist Groups first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kurdish-led SDF Say Five Members Killed During Attack by Islamic State in Syria
Islamic State slogans painted along the walls of the tunnel was used by Islamic State militants as an underground training camp in the hillside overlooking Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. Photo: via Reuters Connect.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Sunday that five of its members had been killed during an attack by Islamic State militants on a checkpoint in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zor on July 31.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State has been trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia. Deir el-Zor city was captured by Islamic State in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.
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Armed Groups Attack Security Force Personnel in Syria’s Sweida, Killing One, State TV Reports
People ride a motorcycle past a burned-out military vehicle, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday.
The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month.
Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks.
The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region.
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Netanyahu Urges Red Cross to Aid Gaza Hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he spoke with the International Red Cross’s regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza.