Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 1, 2024. Photo: SANA/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News — One of the commanders of Syrian rebel forces in Aleppo, known as Abu Abdo, gave a special interview with i24 News’ Matthias Inbar on Wednesday, revealing that, despite differences with Israel, “we are fighting against a common enemy.”

He said that Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, are the criminal entities “dreaming of returning to the glory days of the historical Persian Empire, but it won’t happen if we all face them.”

A member of the former Free Syrian Army, now dubbed the Syrian National Army, he said the group’s members are “neither extremists nor terrorists.”

“I insist and tell all people in the region that we are activists for peace,” he said. “We are not murderous, warlike, and destructive activists. We defend ourselves from injustice and want to build our future Syrian state.”

“We look at Israel and the US, with the arrival of President Donald Trump, and we have a lot of respect and sympathy for them, for their actions against Iran — the country that leads terrorism in the region and all over the world.”

He said that his faction “looks forward to cooperate and eliminate this enemy and restoring stability.”