International Desk

Iran's top diplomat Abbas Araghchi met President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus Sunday to deliver a message of support, state media said, after a lightning rebel advance cost the government control of Syria's second city Aleppo.

Tehran has been a staunch ally of Assad during the civil war that broke out in 2011. Iran maintains it does not have combat troops in Syria, only officers who provide military advice and training.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group has for years fought on the side of the Syrian government.

Araghchi and Assad "discussed bilateral relations and regional developments", Iran's state news agency IRNA reported, without providing further details.

A statement from the Syrian presidency said Assad emphasised "the importance of the support of allies and friends in confronting foreign-backed terrorist attacks".

Before leaving for Damascus, Araghchi said Tehran would "firmly support the Syrian government and army", IRNA reported earlier.

Islamist-led rebels on Saturday seized most of Aleppo, along with its airport and dozens of nearby towns, the war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

And as of Sunday, the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied factions controlled "Aleppo city, except the neighbourhoods controlled by the Kurdish forces", Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the monitor, told AFP.

Araghchi called the surprise rebel offensive a plot by the United States and Israel.

"The Syrian army will once again win over these terrorist groups as in the past," he added.

An Iranian news agency reported that a general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting.

On Saturday, Iran's foreign ministry said its consulate in Aleppo had come under attack, but staff members were safe.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araghchi would also visit Ankara after Damascus.

Since 2020, the rebel enclave in Syria's northwestern Idlib region has been subject to a Turkish- and Russian-brokered truce that had largely been holding despite repeated violations.

But the insurgents' launch on Wednesday of a surprise offensive against Aleppo shattered the truce, the same day a fragile ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Damascus government had regained control of a large part of Syria in 2015 with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies, and in 2016 retook the entire city of Aleppo.